sacrifice: What's all the fuss?

As I pursue my interest in the analytical difference made in our exegetical and historical reconstructions by the so-called "Parting of the Ways," both the book of Hebrews (I can't bring myself to write "epistle to") and the presence of cultic images/metaphors/references in the NT have caught my attention. So I've been reading Christian Eberhart's essay, "Characteristics of Sacrificial Metaphors in Hebrews" (Hebrews: Contemporary Methods—New Insights [Gabriella Gelardini, ed.; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005], 37–64) and, quite frankly, learning a lot. Eberhart begins by arguing that burning, rather than slaughter, is the central idea of θυσία [thusia] and זבח [zevaḥ], especially since what is burned in the burning rite rises up to God.

So both the Hebrew term זבח and the Greek term θυσία need to be understood in a broader sense. Another general Hebrew term for sacrifices, קרבן, literally means "what is brought near" and will be translated as "offering," just like its Greek rendering προσφορά. Once more, neither the Hebrew nor the Greek term stresses or alludes to animal slaughter. Instead, both express the inherent dynamics of a sacrificial ritual which, throughout its performance, "moves" toward the most holy altar, thus "approaching" God who resides in the sanctuary. Therefore a first conclusion of this survey of the sacrificial cult in the HB/OT is that the slaughter of animals is rather insignificant. (44; my emphasis)

I was a bit surprised to see the word "insignificant" used to describe the "slaughter" of sacrificial animals; I would have thought that if death weren't an important part of the idea then some animals would have been offered alive (and kept that way). But at the same time I find myself somewhat persuaded that the emphasis of this language is on "giving (up) to God" rather than "killing (for God)."

This has some rather important consequences for a number of well-known (and well-worn) passages from the NT, including 1 John 1.7 and Rom 12.1–2, which Eberhart touches on (50–55). And while sometimes he seems to be making distinctions without meaningful differences (e.g., 52, n. 32), I do find his reading compelling.

My question is, Do any of you—who probably know more about the sacrificial cult in the Hebrew Bible, in second-Temple Judaism, or as refracted in the NT—find Eberhart's argument as compelling as I do? Is there something to be said in defense of the traditional emphasis of sacrifice on "death" rather than—or simply more than—on "offering"?

how we make our points (or not) in NT discourse

I've picked up again an article I began writing last July and will hopefully have its first draft finished this week or next. More on that later, perhaps. But in the process of gathering some research, I returned to Charles H. Talbert's 1978 essay, "Oral and Independent or Literary and Interdependent? A Response to Albert B. Lord" (in William O. Walker, Jr., ed. The Relationships among the Gospels: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue [San Antonio: Trinity University Press], 93–102), which responds to Lord's argument that the synoptic gospels are examples of oral traditional literature.

Lord was a world-class, first-rate scholar whose breadth of knowledge was vast and whose ability to raise and address unexpected questions was enviable. His landmark book, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960) gave birth to an entire field of study (Oral-Formulaic research). And although some of his proposals now seem narrowly restricted in light of the variegated expressions and experiences of oral performances throughout history and around the world, we can ask the questions we ask in part because Albert Lord taught us how.

I emphasize Lord's stature because it provides the frame of reference from which I re-read Talbert's response this afternoon. Talbert—himself an impressive scholar and, perhaps more importantly, a gentle and kind person—picks up on Lord's conclusion:

The texts of the Gospels "vary from one another to such an extent as to rule out the possibility that, as a whole, one could have been copied from another" (p. 90). From my point of view, however, the divergent wording is no obstacle to our viewing the Synoptic Problem as a literary one. Given the practices of the Hellenistic Age, it is exactly what one should expect. (Talbert 1978: 95; my emphasis)

Does Talbert suppose that Lord is unaware of the relevant "practices of the Hellenistic Age"? If so, it would have been nice of him to state them briefly and explain why these mitigate the force of the comparative arguments Lord adduced for his conclusion. Instead, Talbert turns to to Josephus's use of sources for his Antiquities of the Jews, although the utility of Josephus and his Antiquities of the Jews for understanding either the evangelists or their writings is highly questionable. Should we assume that Josephus was a "normal" or unremarkable example of "practices of the Hellenistic Age"? Even if so, which practices, precisely, does Talbert have in mind?

Even five years ago, when I first encountered Walker's book, I was struck by the non-answer Talbert provides to Lord's arguments. Granted, Lord's Oral-Formulaic paradigm isn't as applicable to the gospels as we might have thought in 1978. But Talbert's response is, in essence, to suggest that Lord's explications of oral-traditional dynamics also apply to literary products. Talbert seems to assume this settles the question of whether or not the synoptic problem is properly addressed as a literary problem, but instead I think it raises the question of the oral (or better, traditional) dynamics of written texts in the ancient world.

But I come back to the dismissive gesture I italicized in the quote from Talbert's response, above. The appeal to the ill-defined, unspecified "practices of the Hellenistic Age" ducks and dodges Lord's argument rather than responds to it. And while I'm interested in the questions Lord's legacy has left behind for gospels scholars, I would also like to encourage myself, my students, and my colleagues to avoid the very sorts of appeals to "the way it would have been" that allow us to shy away from actually very interesting and challenging questions.

reading Hebrews

This morning I finished reading through the Greek text of Hebrews (whew!), and I resumed reading Hebrews: Contemporary Methods—New Insights (Gabriella Gelardini, ed.; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005). I say "resumed," but the truth is I had only read Gelardini's introduction and the Foreword (by Harold Attridge).

So this morning I read Ekkehard and Wolfgang Stegemann's essay, "Does the Cultic Language in Hebrews Represent Sacrificial Metaphors? Reflections on Some Basic Problems" (13–23). The Stegemanns begin with the postmodern critique of Western epistemology (or rather of invisibility of that epistemology [17]); they then pursue the motivations for and significance of describing Hebrews's cultic presentation of Jesus' death as "metaphor." We apply the label metaphor because "the crucifixion of Jesus in Jerusalem, which is taken as the historical referent outside the relevant passages in Hebrews, neither shows any feature of the performance of a cultic sacrifice nor regards Jesus as a substitute for an animal victim" and functions rather "as a means toward a theological understanding of the death of Christ" (15).

The Stegemanns, then, demonstrate the culturally contextualized nature of this way of thinking about history and about the text. I found their conclusion particularly stimulating, and I hope to follow up their argument in the future:

The decision between a metaphorical and non-metaphorical interpretation of the death of Jesus depends on our assessment of the historical referent to which a textual passage is related. Therefore it depends on the respective model of reality that, as far as our model is concerned, we take as universally valid. We easily admit that the metaphorical use of sacrificial language is very helpful and deepens our interpretation of the crucifixion—but just as interpretation of the crucifixion, not its representation. On the contrary, the discourses of the social and legal aspects of the crucifixion of Jesus in Jerusalem are in our view not interpretations of the historical events but their representation. (18; original emphases)

If I've read the Stegemanns rightly, they suggest reading the cultic language of Jesus' death in Hebrews as representation rather than interpretation (18). Their reading provides interesting material to ponder, but I think scholarship in general has reacted to postmodern critiques in a different direction. Rather than reading Hebrews's sacrificial language as representation, I think we would tend to highlight the interpretive functions of other, presumably non-metaphorical representations of history. I am not sure, however, whether these are actually two different reactions.

Jesus' Roman cross and the art of crucifixion

The historical significance of Jesus' mode of execution is a complicated matter. On the one hand, scholars (e.g., John Dominic Crossan) have emphasized the Roman-ness of crucifixion to distance the Jews/Jewish authorities from responsibility for Jesus' death. Luke's portrayal of Stephen's execution in Acts 7 stands in some contrast to the crucifixion narratives: Death by Jewish hands is administered by stoning. For that matter, John's gospel also makes references to stoning, whether of the adulterous woman (8.5, 7; admittedly questionable texts) or of Jesus himself (8.59; 10.31–33; 11.8). If Jews had been responsible for putting Jesus to death, they would not have nailed him to a cross. Since Jesus was crucified, he must have been executed by Roman authorities for Roman reasons. The gospels, then, set out to minimize Christianity's offense to Rome, so they paint the Jews as the real Christ-killers.

On the other hand, the ethnic affiliations of crucifixion as a means of execution don't seem as secure as this. For one thing, in the famous discussion of Jewish methods of capital punishment in the Talmud (b. Sanh. 43a), "Jesus the Nazarene" (the translation is Peter Schäfer's [Jesus in the Talmud; Princeton University Press, 2007]), the text says a herald went out forty days prior to Jesus' execution to announce that Jesus was to be stoned and to seek out witnesses for his defense. When none were found, Jesus "was hanged" (tela’uhu), which Schäfer interprets as the post-mortem demonstration of Jesus' body after he had been stoned. But Joseph Fitzmyer argues that the root תלה [tlh], at least in the DSS, refers to crucifixion ("Crucifixion in Ancient Palestine, Qumran Literature, and the New Testament" [CBQ 40 (1978): 502–7]). I don't think b. Sanh. 43a provides any historical information about Jesus' death; rather, it reflects ongoing debate (between Jesus' followers and other Jews) about Jesus' significance. The world(s) in which Talmudic traditions were formed was/were also inhabited by Christians proclaiming a crucified Christ, and I'm impressed that, in the midst of this proclamation, b. Sanh. 43a accepts Jesus' execution at Jewish hands (regardless of the precise referent of תלה).

An additional complication comes from a very well-known story from Josephus, who describes the Hasmonean king/high priest Alexander Jannaeus as crucifying 800 Jews while he enjoyed a meal with his concubines, and as the men hung on their crosses he slaughtered their wives and children in front of them (Ant. 13.380). Josephus describes this as "the cruelest act of all" [πάντων ὠμότατον ἔργον; pantōn ōmotaton ergon), a phrase which may suggest the scandal of a Jew administering crucifixion as a means of executing people of his own nation. But the story remains as evidence that crucifixion could function as a Jewish means of execution. And, again, Fitzmyer finds similar phenomena in 4QpNah and in the Temple Scroll.

In all of this, I would suggest that we cannot read the gospels' Passion Narratives as mitigating Roman responsibility for Jesus' crucifixion and foisting blame on the Jews and/or the Jewish leaders. Rather, the gospels rather clearly portray Pilate's role in Jesus' trial and execution (whether or not we accept the historicity of their portrayal), and I would suggest the gospels even portray Jesus' fate as the result of the political posturing of Pilate and the Jewish authorities. The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus executed while Pilate made it clear that he wasn't simply their instrument to achieve their goals. Jesus' crucifixion served both the Jewish leadership's and the Romans' interests, but Pilate also made sure reinforce the political order over which he had been appointed by the emperor. After all, even the titulus Pilate had hung over Jesus' head announced not only the charge against Jesus but also, by why of parody, Judea's subjection to Rome.

Jesus and purity

I was sent home by the campus nurse late this morning with symptoms that might be early signs of swine flu. Though I have been washing my hands more frequently and taking advantage of the myriad hand sanitizer dispensers that have suddenly and magically appeared all over campus (and throughout the rest of the city!) like acne on a twelve-year-old, I do not truly believe, apparently, that nothing outside the body that goes into my body can defile me.

During my self-inflicted semi-quarantine this afternoon, I began reading from Mark's gospel. Perhaps in the throes of my current state purity is especially on my mind. Perhaps I haven't been drinking enough fluids. But the end of Mark 9, which bears some thematic resemblance to Matt 5.29–30 (remember that Matt 5–7 is typically attributed to Matthew's reworking of Q material), suddenly struck me as a passage on purity:

43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better for you to enter into life maimed than to be sent away into hell—into unquenchable fire—with two hands. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better for you to enter into life lame than to be cast into hell with two feet. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, cast it away from you! It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to be cast into hell with two eyes, 48 where their worm never dies and their fire is never put out. (Mark 9.43–48; vv 44, 46 were likely later additions on the influence of v 48)

I have always read this passage (and its Matthean parallel) in terms of the radical undesirability of sin. Of course, only an idiot would lop off his hand or foot or pluck out his eye, as if the impulse to sin weren't more closely rooted in the major organs. But Jesus, I've always thought, is speaking hyperbolically. "Avoid sin so radically, so passionately, so consequentially," Jesus is saying, "that you would remove your own self rather than lust after that woman or steal that loaf of bread or do harm against your neighbor." This reading will preach, but is it the best reading of this passage?

Everyone recognizes that purity issues appear from time to time in various NT texts; Acts 3.1–10 and 8.26–40 are the first two that come to my mind. Both texts center on a man (a crippled Jew in Acts 3; a [probably] gentile eunuch in Acts 8) prevented from worshiping YHWH because of a physical deformity. Both texts emphasize the power of Jesus' name to bring these types of men directly into God's presence. And both texts, I think, implicitly contrast their disabled protagonists with the able-bodied Jewish hierocratic leadership that has unrestricted access to the Temple but nevertheless fails to come into God's presence as mediated through Jesus.

Perhaps because I've just finished reading Richard Horsley's recent book, Jesus in Context, I wonder if the Markan passage (and even the Lukan passages referred to, above) provides a glimpse into the distinctive forms that Hebrew biblical traditions could take among the non- or (sometimes) semi-literate, non-elite populace outside the Temple, especially in Galilee and beyond the immediate reach of Judean power structures. In other words, if the "great tradition" embodying the Hebrew Bible among the urban elite, especially in Jerusalem, emphasized physical unblemished-ness as requisite for coming into God's presence, how significant is it that Jesus espouses intentionally (if symbolically) becoming physically blemished precisely in order to enter into God's presence? The priestly expressions of Judaism went to great lengths to protect the people from the dangerous holiness of God, and there were highly stylized, ritualized, and scripted procedures for coming into God's presence. Jesus, if I'm reading Mark 9 rightly, isn't suggesting that Israel's God is actually much safer than the Temple system, with all its buffers against defilement, portrays. Rather, Jesus is suggesting that rather different purity prescriptions grant a person access to God. Not physical wholeness but child-like innocence (see Mark 9.42). Not ritual precision but care for the poor, the powerless, the widow, orphaned, and sojourner.

I'm not sure where this type of reading would lead me. I have a few hunches, though. Rather than simply christocentric (or, following Richard B. Hays, ecclesiocentric), Mark and people with whom he was associated experienced Hebrew biblical traditions as little tradition (rather than great tradition). And they preserved the memory that Jesus did likewise. Torah, the prophets, and the writings weren't simply "about" Jesus; Jesus established [at least some of] the principles according to which the Tanakh functioned in the community. Christocentric/Ecclesiocentric, yes. But not merely so. I also suspect that a number of other pericopae receive brighter illumination by being read in terms of purity and other peculiarly Jewish theologoumena. Here Serge Ruzer's book, Mapping the New Testament, is helpful (even if some of his interpretations are unconvincing).

You Markan scholars out there, Am I way off base? Or has this been the standard interpretation of 9.43–48 for some time now?

"unstable," but not "developing"

I'm wrapping up my review of Richard Horsley's Jesus in Context this morning. As I began reading Horsley's conclusion (pp. 224–228), I found an occasion to articulate the basis for some of my disagreement with Horsley's argument. This articulation has been difficult precisely because Horsley asks many of the questions I think need to be asked and examines many of the established assumptions and procedures in biblical scholarship that have gotten us into the mess we're in (to say things a bit too strongly). In other words, Horsley is having exactly the conversation I think we need to be having, and for that I praise his book.

Nevertheless, I think he does miss some important facets of that conversation, and these need some illumination. Horsley begins his concluding thoughts in this way:

As we have seen, recent research is undermining some of the assumptions on which standard study of the Gospels previously depended. We can recognize now that there were no stable written texts of Mark, Matthew, Luke, or John in late antiquity. the written texts were "unstable," that is, they kept developing, in part because any texts in antiquity, whether written down or not, were generally recited or "performed" before groups of people. Oral communication was predominant, even in literate circles. (Horsley 2008: 224)

Whatever we might think about the gospels, one of the things about which we can be most confident is that they were, indeed, not stable in the sense in which we think of stability. I am sitting in my office surrounded by bookshelves lined with printed texts, every single one of which has a copyright notice even before the title page and has been printed through a highly developed process that guarantees that every copy of that book is identical, even to the point of reproducing any errata. What's more, when I refer to these texts, I am careful to do so precisely and exactly, in part because I know that any one can check my references in their own copies of those texts.

The gospels did not have any of these features. Of the thousands of copies that survive as manuscripts, none of them are identical. While most of the differences are relatively insignificant, some are rather important. How/Where does Mark's gospel end? Where does the story of the woman caught in adultery belong in the canon, if anywhere? Similar questions attend every book of the New Testament. Does Paul, for example, tell his readers that they have peace with God [ἔχομεν; echomen], or does he exhort them to pursue peace with God [ἔχωμεν; echōmen; Rom 5.1]? This instability doesn't just attend the transmission of the written text but also the performance of the traditions contained therein. In other words, just because the written text of Matt 5.3–12 has a very specific number and order of beatitudes doesn't mean that every time the Matthean evangelist performed Jesus' covenantal sermon he began with that specific number/order of beatitudes. Obviously, when Luke performed a similar tradition, he had a different number of beatitudes, but I would also suggest that the Lukan evangelist also may have performed that tradition differently before as well as after writing the text we call Luke.

But I balk somewhat at calling this instability development because of the evolutionary trajectories that have structured our thinking about gospel traditions at least since the advent of form criticism. Whether or not Horsley intends "developing" in this sense, he is bound to be read this way among biblical scholars. I suggest that the texts' movement—French scholar Paul Zumthor uses the term mouvance in a highly technical sense—was a feature of its function rather than its development. In other words, later texts (Matthew and Luke?) were not "more developed" than earlier ones (Mark? Q??) even despite the differences between them. Instead, in very many instances, the differences between them manifest the tradition's transcendence of written texts. The Jesus tradition was evoked by the written texts rather than contained by them, and shifts in the text were shifts in respect to the larger Jesus tradition rather than shifts in the tradition itself.

I should say that the tradition itself could shift, could develop, and we may see that in the relation between the synoptic gospels and John, and again with the Gospel of Thomas (and even within Gos. Thom., if we follow April DeConick), and certainly in some of the other texts that call themselves gospels. But we don't detect that development in the tradition as a whole by tracing minute changes in wording. Despite the sometimes awesome changes a single word can manifest (e.g., "Spirit of God" versus "finger of God" in Matt 12.28||Luke 11.20), the tradition often remains intact even as the evocation of the tradition responds to the dynamic and vibrant life of the communities cherishing, preserving, and living within the memory of Jesus.

another thought

The recent research in these areas thus gives powerful confirmation to hypotheses that only a few interpreters were previously ready to entertain and willing to argue. First, Israelite culture was as diverse as were the groups and communities that comprised Judean, Galilean, and Samaritan society. Different versions of Israelite tradition coexisted and competed. The well-known differences between the Sadducees and the Pharisees can be multiplied. (Horsley, Jesus in Context, 129)

This is true, for the most part. But again I'm a little frustrated that Horsley rails so effectively against established assumptions even while continuing to employ them. Earlier on page 129, for example, Horsley has rightly noted:

[T]hose who have closely examined the multiple scrolls of books of the Torah found at Qumran are also concluding that the text of the books of the Torah was not yet uniform or stable. Different textual traditions still existed in the same scribal community (and presumably in Jerusalem as well), each of which was still undergoing development. The Dead Sea Scrolls also supply further examples of alternative Torah (4QMMT; the Temple Scroll) and alternative versions of Israelite history and tradition (not rewritten Bible; Jubilees; Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities) that coexisted and competed, at least among scribal circles.

Some conservative Christians, somehow, turned to the DSS (and especially the Great Isaiah Scroll) in order to argue for the textual stability of the Hebrew Bible even in texts that were 1,000 years older [!] than previously known texts. Some texts were indeed remarkably similar to what became the Masoretic Text (the basis for modern English translations of the Old Testament), but others were strikingly different. And there were also other texts that Jews and Christians would later exclude from the canon. None of this is meant to imply the Bible is unreliable or untrustworthy. But if the DSS have any significance for the question of the Bible's reliability, that significance is very ambiguous.

Horsley, however, has recognized the textual and traditional dynamics at play at Qumran even while adhering an old paradigm of "competing versions." Qumran might not have preserved a stable text-form of Hebrew biblical traditions, but neither does it suggest a competition between text-forms. In fact, if competition were the best way to think about different text-forms (LXX, MT, Samaritan, in addition to various minor and other variant readings and traditions), I would expect Qumran to have expended some effort to conform their biblical scrolls to a particular text-form.

Instead, we find at Qumran evidence that LXX, MT, and Samaritan readings could be preserved and read as authoritative in a single community. This isn't competition. Rather, it suggests that the text-form may not have been the most important factor. What mattered, I suggest, was the tradition itself, and the text's primary significance was for enabling access to the tradition. In this paradigm, then, what matters isn't [necessarily] whether or not this or that reading was preserved but rather how the text functioned to connect the community to its traditions. Of course, specific readings could become significant as groups engaged in social conflict (whether Qumran against a Temple priesthood, or Justin against Trypho, or Samaritans against Judeans, etc.). But even this "becoming significant" was a function of other, extratextual factors.

just some thoughts

Standard study of the gospel tradition assumed that the gospel tradition was making a break from "Judaism." But "Judaism" is an essentialist modern concept, a largely European Christian scholarly construct, like Orientalism. It is not clear that "Judaism" has any historical referent, at least not until late antiquity at the earliest. (Horsley, Jesus in Context, 110)

I'm sympathetic to Horsley's point here, especially since it comes in his discussion of "social memory and gospel traditions" (109–25). But I think he's made it a bit too bluntly (i.e., without precision), and so some refinement seems in order.

1. First, "standard study of the gospel tradition" continues to assume that "the gospel tradition was making a break from 'Judaism,'" so I question the past-tense assumed. A mere quibble, perhaps, but the contemporary awareness of (and even emphasis upon) the variegated expression of "Judaism" in the late second Temple period hasn't corrected the problem Horsley's identifying here.


2. Second, I'm not sure it's helpful to say that "'Judaism' is an essentialist modern concept," but rather that gospels and Jesus scholarship have essentialized "Judaism," and that essentialization has had some unfortunate effects on our understanding of all things Christian origins and second Temple Jewish. Again, a mere quibble, perhaps. But "Judaism" [Ἰουδαϊσμός; Ioudaismos] was a category available in the ancient, non-European world (see, of course, Gal 1.14). The problem isn't the concept but our analytical use of that concept.


3. "European" and "Christian," perhaps, but I'm skeptical that "Judaism" is "a largely . . . scholarly construct," whether or not like Orientalism. Horsley's discussion might be focused on scholarly essentializations of Judaism, and rightly so, but the problem seems rather more cultural than simply scholarly. This is yet another instance in which scholarship in the humanities has a significant opportunity to identify a blind spot in our larger cultural context, to illuminate that blind spot, and to speak meaningfully about the very real problems with which that blind spot has been associated throughout Western civilization (anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, of course, but also more general questions about how we interact with "the Other").


4. And so I wouldn't say that "it is not clear that 'Judaism' has any historical referent" prior to late antiquity (again, see Gal 1.14). Instead, I happily note the opportunity to quote The Princess Bride with respect to New Testament scholars' (and others') use of Judaism: "You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

ringing in the Fall 2009 term

Today is the first day of Fall 2009 classes for undergraduate students at Johnson Bible College. It should be a great semester; last night we had a successful Convocation ceremony and dedicated the new Russell Preaching Center (which houses my new office and into which the entire Distance Learning department moved over the summer). Very sheik, or sheek, or sheak . . . they're nice.

Today is also the first of three days of orientation for new students in the MA New Testament program. Though their semester began 10 July, students come onto campus now to . . . well, be oriented to the program. Since this is a distance learning program, we won't see many of you until you're finishing up your degree. But we hope this is the beginning of a vibrant and inquisitive relationship.

As we start this new term I can't help but be humbled by the realization that a number of institutions of higher education that kicked off the Spring 2009 semester last January closed their doors over the summer and aren't gearing up for 2009-2010. Some of you have made that difficult transition; others are still in the thick of it. My prayers are with you.

Best of luck to all of JBC's students, whether new, returning, or transfer. For my part, I'm teaching Elementary Greek, a first-year Gospel Narratives course, two courses in the graduate program, and I'm taking Intermediate Hebrew I. Structuring Early Christian Memory should be published by the SBL Annual meeting, and I have a number of book reviews in various states of progress. A number of projects were on hold this summer as I revised most of my course materials for this semester, and I hope to pick them up again in the coming weeks. But there's much to do for the Spring 2010 term, so I'm only marginally hopeful. Here's to work completed, work in progress, and work we hope to one day get to.

playing the gospels

Over the last couple years I've been trying to think about the gospels less like written books and more like musical scores. I was led in this direction, I'm sure, by John Miles Foley (especially Imminent Art [1991], The Singer of Tales in Performance [1995] and How to Read an Oral Poem [2002]), who uses the term libretto to refer to the written manifestations of oral tradition. Questions still abound: Does the libretto embody an oral performance (transcript)? Does the libretto enable oral performance (script)? Does the libretto function as part of oral performance (prop)? Etc. But these are fundamentally different questions than traditional gospels scholarship has learned to ask.

For me, the biggest gain that comes from thinking of the gospels as scores rather than books derives from the cultural function of both in our own milieu. We read books directly; they are their own "things." Not so with sheet music. Even accomplished musicians, who can "read" a musical score, are acutely aware that looking at the lines and notes on the page is only the first step of interpretation. We haven't read the music until we've heard the music, no matter how long, how closely, and how carefully we've looked at the page. But here's the point: The marks on the page were meant to be performed! A musical score doesn't give you the option to just look at it and analyze it; you're already misunderstanding the text if you don't play the music. Important as sheet music is, it doesn't exist for itself. It pleads with us to look beyond the page and to hear the music.

So also, I think, with the gospels. We have printed synopses that help us see the patterns of similarities and differences between the four gospels (and especially Matthew, Mark, and Luke). We have commentaries that discuss every word and phrase found in the text. We have even stratified the texts, attributing this layer to Mark, this to Q, this to the evangelist, and so on. We've inspected not only every note of the libretti in front of us but also every jot and tittle. But New Testament scholarship has largely missed the music and refused to hear the text. I'm beginning to wonder if the gospels, like sheet music, don't exist for themselves. We have to move beyond reading the gospels. We have to get to the Jesus tradition to which the gospels point.

My thoughts here are very preliminary, and I need to work them out still. But Richard Horsley has found himself asking the same question, as I found out this morning as I started chapter 3 of Jesus in Context (2008). Horsley remembers a conversation with some of his students:

One of the students, a performing musician, responded by drawing an analogy from music. It seemed to her like Gospel scholars tend to focus on one or two measures of a score at a time, but never realize that the notes on that score are merely symbols for parts of larger melodies, fugues, and movements or of whole choruses and arias, cantatas, and operas. They have not yet discovered the work as a whole, much less considered what it would be like in performance. (2008: 56)

Horsley is talking about context, primarily, and preparing to talk about performance. And he's right on both counts: We need to account for the story as a whole rather than merely its parts in isolation, and we need to account for the medium (or media) in which most people accessed that story. But I'm not concerned, primarily, with either context or performance. Both of these issues, for me, raise larger questions about tradition. If the early Christians spoke more broadly about Jesus than the simple reading of four (or more) texts, if the early Christians lived in the shadow of that broader speech rather than of a written canon, if the Jesus tradition manifested itself in symbols, art, song, behavior, images, rituals, longings, and so on, then how can we read the gospels and hear the tradition to which they point, of which they are embodiments, and in which they find their resonance? These questions, I think, are much more important than the standard, source-, form-, and redaction-critical analyses that have dominated the field.

[N.B. Let me be clear about what type of questions I'm asking. I ask these questions first as a historian and only secondarily as a Christian, though of course this second identity is the more fundamental one for me. But you don't have to worship at the altar of Bach or Mendelssohn to recognize that their score point to their music. Horsley does not write from a perspective of faith; I do. But I'm raising historical and literary questions, not theological ones. Even if a person doubts that the texts enable us to hear Jesus they should still recognize that the texts were meant to make us hear something.]

on the allure of learning Greek

Every year around this time (well, in a couple weeks) I ask my students why they decided to commit the time and energy, endure the frustrations, and (even) suffer the stigmata involved in learning New Testament Greek. There are about half-a-dozen typical answers (and usually one or two from out past left field), but one answer is far and away the most popular: "I want to read God's Word in its original language." A little digging reveals an awareness, impressive coming from nineteen-year-olds if not clearly articulated, that reading the Bible in translation entails depending on a layer (or several layers) of translation. If "the Bible" is God's Word, the NIV is a translation committee's mediation of God's Word. The same goes, mutatis mutandis, for the NASB, NRSV, NLT, etc. etc. etc.

Very early in my own experiences as a Greek student, however, I realized that things were a bit more complicated. I learned from D. A. Black's Learn to Read New Testament Greek (now available in a third edition, with an accompanying workbook), the same text I use ten years later in my own course. And as I learned that βαπτίζω means I baptize and ὁ ὄχλος means crowd, I realized that I was exchanging a translation committee's mediation of the texts' meaning(s) for Prof. Black's. Could I ever close the door to the rest of the world and sit—just me and the text—alone with God's Word?

The problem, of course, is that I never read any text alone, whether the New Testament in Greek or the newspaper in English. I've always learned how to interact with texts from others and with others, and even in the solitude of my office or at home I invoke them in my reading of those texts. I don't depend on Prof. Black to understand the nuances of Greek vocabulary, of course; my exposure to and experiences with a variety of Greek texts and lexica have broadened and deepened my knowledge base. And though I feel relatively free (not completely, though) of any of the popular translation committees, I'm more aware than ever that I read the texts as one part of a larger community, one which includes members of translation committees, compilers and editors of lexica, text critics, philologists, exegetes and expositors, homileticians, and a host of others.

Even so, I still long for—strive after, even—an unmediated experience of the text. I want to experience it first-hand, to read it "for myself," to know it face-to-face rather than dimly, through a glass. And I see my longing reflected in Moses' request to see God's glory (Exod 33). And as I finish up Barry Schwartz's book, Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era, I see it reflected, and partially realized, in Sigmund Freud's reaction to the Acropolis:

When, finally, on the afternoon after our arrival, I stood upon the Acropolis and cast my eyes around upon the landscape, a remarkable thought suddenly entered my mind: 'So all this really does exist, just as we learnt in school!' Or it would be possible to maintain that when I was a schoolboy I had thought I was convinced of the historic reality of the city of Athens and its history, but that the occurrence of this idea on the Acropolis had precisely shown that . . . I had not believed in it . . . ! (cited in Schwartz 2008: 250)

The challenge, it seems to me, is to stop teaching my students about the Acropolis and to bring them to it—to stop [merely] teaching them Greek so that they can read the Greek texts at some point in the future and to bring them in contact with the texts themselves.

Horsley's hierarchies

I've begun reviewing Richard Horsley's recent book, Jesus in Context: Power, People, and Performance (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008). I met Horsley in Boston at last year's SBL Annual Meeting, and I can honestly say that no established scholar has been as nice to me on first meeting as he was. I have enjoyed Horsley's scholarship since my first exposure to it in 2000 (when I read his edited volume, Paul and Politics (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000). Though he and I have some significantly different conclusions, he asks almost exactly the same questions I'm interested in pursuing.

Which leads me to one of the ironies I've always found at the heart of Horsley's scholarship. On the one hand, he has made it a regular feature of his research to examine and question established assumptions driving NT scholarship (especially the divide between religion, politics, and economics; the assumption of stable, printed, widely available written texts, etc.). On the other, his own assumptions have created a number of problems, whether because he continues to be influenced by the assumptions he has already undermined (e.g., his interest in Q despite that hypothetical document's dependence on literary theories Horsely elsewhere denounces) or because he applies similar logic as those assumptions to new ones (e.g., his bifurcation of "people's history" from "standard history" despite evidence that both approaches, in isolation from the other, distort our analyses).

With this ambivalence in mind, I point out two references, relatively near to each other, from Horsley's most recent publication:

Anthropologists and social historians, drawing on comparative studies of agrarian societies, have moved well beyond the problematic old two-tier model of aristocratic culture and folk culture. In most situations there is an interaction between a "little tradition," the "distinctive patterns of belief and behavior . . . valued by the peasantry," and the corresponding "great tradition" of the elite. (2008: 28)

There was thus no standardized Scripture that operated as the authority even in the scribal circles and the priestly circles who controlled the Temple. It is highly unlikely therefore that the Hebrew Scriptures were known to Judean and Galilean peasants. Scrolls, which were extremely expensive and cumbersome, were more or less confined to scribal circles. (2008: 29)

Let me say that, in broad strokes, I agree with the main thrusts of both comments. But (and here's the point), Horsley is too restrictive in his view of written texts as weapons wielded by elite power interests to oppress the lower class(es). Written texts—both their contents and the symbolic currency of their material existence—also participated in the "interaction between a 'little tradition' . . . and the corresponding 'great tradition' of the elite." After all, even the gospel texts themselves, which Horsely rightly identifies as rooted in and expressive of a form of little tradition in opposition to Judean great tradition, are written texts. They are also "more than" written texts, inasmuch as they embody a larger, contextualizing tradition that transcends the written texts. But they were never less than written texts.

Here, I think, Horsley has allowed his thinking to be governed by hierarchical structural dynamics, even though he has shown himself to be such a prolific expositeur of other well-established but ultimately inappropriate hierarchies. Horsley is clearly not uncritical. His work is, rather, a useful location for realizing that the social environment into which we learn to read the biblical text exerts massive influence, and the work of distancing ourselves from our heritage in order to understand that heritage is never complete.

OMG

How in the world did I miss the publication of the fourth installment of A Marginal Jew?! The first three volumes (especially vols. 2 [1994] and 3 [2001], but also vol. 1 [1991]) are well worth the read, though these are more reference works than books to read from page one 'til the indices. But eighteen years, four volumes, and over three thousand pages all conspire to wane one's interest in historical investigation on Jesus. I dare say anyone else's fourth volume [!] on Jesus would seem . . . I dunno, unnecessary, perhaps. But Meier's work is always impressive in its breadth and incessant in its pursuit of detail. Meier, like Dunn, Hengel, and a few other scholars, somehow seems to know all the relevant primary literature and to have read all the secondary literature, too. Singly, these are impressive feats; together they are Herculean. And though I disagree with Meier at a number of points (some quite significant), I stand in awe of what Meier has accomplished. Congratulations, Professor Meier.

a great couple of clips

If you've never seen the BBC's programme, Top Gear, you really need to. Even my wife loves it, though I suspect she's as interested in Jeremy Clarkson or (more probably) Richard Hammond as she is the cars. There are simply too many hilarious clips to show them all here; I recommend searching for Top Gear on YouTube. But this one is both funny and it makes a salient point. Try to imagine a similar test involving, I dunno, healthcare.

Top Gear, Pt. I

Top Gear, Pt. II

[I apologize for linking rather than embedding the videos; trust me, this is the better way to see these.]

the miraculous in Q

I'd like to solicit your help, because I'm quite sure I must not understand what I've just read.

I'm preparing some reading questions from Pheme Perkins's discussion on "The Quest for Sources" (Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels [Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2007], 54–125), particularly pp. 54–96. Her discussion is pretty standard (as you would expect from an introduction) in that it is characteristically careful and yet glosses over a number of issues I'm not wanting to gloss over. Following the critical edition of Q, Perkins provides a comprehensive list of sayings (pp. 74–80). Then, in a move reminiscent of Richard Horsley and Jonathan Draper's analysis in Whoever Hears You Hears Me (London and New York: Trinity Press International, 1999), she provides a rudimentary structure of discursive blocks into which many (but not all) the Q material fits.

When I'm open to the Q hypothesis, I'm open to this larger "Collection of Discourses" model of Q rather than the atomistic model of a sayings source. But then Perkins makes a comment I really don't understand. She says,

The only anomalous pericope [among the Q material] is the lone miracle story [i.e., Jesus' healing the centurion's child (Luke 7.1–10)]. Most descriptions of Q skirt the difficulty by describing it as a statement about faith. For example, the editors of the critical edition entitle the section, "The Centurion's Faith in Jesus' Word." Jesus' miracle working does not figure in any of the other sayings of Q or in the later Gos. Thom. Rather than to make the healing of the centurion's son fit by stripping it of that element, one should consider alternate possibilities. (Perkins 2007: 81; my emphasis)

I've italicized the passage that's giving me problems. Is Perkins really saying that, other than Q 7.1–10, Jesus' miracle working (especially his healings and exorcisms) don't appear in Q? What about Q 7.18–23? or Q 11.14–23? Perkins has already listed Luke 7.18–35 as "Jesus on the Baptist, against 'this generation'," but we should remember that Jesus' response to John's disciples referred explicitly and programmatically to his healing of the blind, lame, deaf, and leprous, and his raising of the dead. Similarly, she listed Luke 11.14–51 as "Jesus against his opponents," but that story kicks off by Jesus' exorcising a demon and climaxes with Jesus' statement, "But if I cast out demons by the finger [Matt 12.28 = Spirit] of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." Other references could also be given.

Perkins's discussion is, as I've already said, very careful, so I must be missing her point. I'd appreciate it if someone out there can clue me in to what I'm missing.

[UPDATE: A comment taken out of context but, in light of the previous discussion, nevertheless intriguing: "Q2 knows of, but has no place for, Jesus as healer and exorcist" (Perkins 2007: 96). Is Perkins's but has no place for justifiable?]

on the re-unification of Codex Sinaiticus

The British Library has a series of podcasts on the re-unification of Codex Sinaiticus, for anyone interested.

[HT: Mark Goodacre]

a [nearly] new article

I fell a bit behind in my reading and so have only just now picked up the second-most-recent issue of Bulletin for Biblical Research (19.1). I have just finished Gary N. Knoppers's very interesting article, "The Synoptic Problem? An Old Testament Perspective" (19.1 [2009]: 11–34). Admittedly I misunderstood the article's title. I expected the piece to present an argument regarding the synoptic problem within gospels scholarship from the perspective of Old Testament criticism. Instead, Knoppers focuses on biblical synopticism in general, but especially in the Hebrew Bible, from the perspective of mimēsis (or imitatio) in the ancient world (Classical, Egyptian, Hellenistic, Roman) in general. Knoppers brings a breathtakingly broad sample of ancient evidence to bear on the question of mimēsis. Given the related discussions among source critics of the gospels' interdependence and the relatively disconnected nature of those discussions from the practices of reproduction and adaptation in ancient milieux, Knoppers's article is probably the place to begin source critical analyses in the future.

To provide one sample, among many possibilities, Knoppers addresses the problem of distinguishing mimēsis from plagiarism in the ancient world (2009: 27–33). It is fairly common practice for gospels scholars to claim, in their introductory source-critical comments, that plagiarism is a modern cultural construction that does not apply to the evangelists. When we claim that Matthew and Luke, for example, reproduced significant portions of their sources (Mark and Q), we are not making the same claim as when we accuse one of our students of reproducing significant portions of their sources in a research assignment. As one example,

Some view [the theory of the gospels as interdependent] as portraying two of the Gospel authors as copyists who relied on others for a large portion of their work. Ancient authors had no scruples about plagiarism; so the theory does not suggest the writers did anything unethical, but it does reduce the originality of the later writers. (Richard Niswonger, New Testament History [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992], 102; my emphasis)

Knoppers's article, pace Niswonger, documents the rather heterogenous and contentious ideas surrounding ideas of imitation and plagiarism. Slavish reproduction of one's sources was not merely considered "unoriginal" by many ancient writers, but it was even referred to as "thievery" (klopē). While the legal concept of copyright did not exist in the ancient world, there was often fierce, sometimes contentious arguments over authors' rights and the obligations of later writers vis-à-vis their sources. Knoppers, who cites Michael Silk's entry, "Plagiarism," (Oxford Classical Dictionary [ed. S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth; 3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996, 1188]), deserves citing at some length:

As Silk comments, "The preoccupation with plagiarism over many centuries serves as a reminder that, contrary to some modern misstatements, ancient literature, especially poetry, was expected to be 'new.' Certainly many writers, Greek and Roman, are anxious to assert the originality of their own claim to it." Much of the modern discussion about imitation and plagiarism assumes clearly available and agreed-on rules across the spectrum of ancient scholarship during a variety of times, but no central, universally recognized arbiter of definitions and standards existed in antiquity. There was, of course, no such thing as copyright, and, there was no widespread notion of the sanctity of intellectual property. Working within diverse traditions, diverse times, and diverse settings, ancient critics were sure to disagree. (2009: 32)

The gospels, of course, were produced in vastly different cultural milieux than those discussed by Knoppers; the values and norms of ancient elite cultures were certainly not operative in the production and reception of the gospel traditions and texts, certainly not during the first century. But elite standards were massively influential, and their values and norms would have "trickled down" into more popular writings. Those values and norms, also, would have been distorted in the process. But we cannot simply wave aside our students' discomfiture (or our own) at the implied accusation that the evangelists were plagiarists by denying such a concept to the ancient world. Mark himself, if our source-critical theories are accurate, may have picked up a copy of Matthew and exclaimed to himself, "Now just wait one gosh-darn minute!"

Incredible[s]

My three year-old is currently watching The Incredibles on a fairly regularly basis, which, frankly, I prefer to Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. Who could prefer the princesses' passive model of femininity—one cleaning around the house and the other sleeping [!] until the man of her life comes to give her value and worth—to Helen Parr/Elastigirl's incredulous question: "Leave the saving of the world men? I don't think so!"

In my opinion, The Incredibles is one of the best family movies of the decade in part because of an unusual theme that runs almost directly against the grain of current cultural trends. In two prominent quotes, both of which, I believe, bring their scenes to a close, one of the movie's protagonists and its main antagonist express this theme:

[Helen Parr, while sighing] Everyone's special, Dash.
[Dash, under his breath] Which is another way of saying nobody is.

[Syndrome] I'll give them heroics. I'll give them the most spectacular heroics they've ever seen! And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so everyone can be superheroes! Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super, [laughs maniacally] no one will be.

Besides Dash's and Syndrome's lines, however, the theme of being special/super precisely because a character puts effort into his or her areas of natural ability is a major sub-plot for both Dash and Syndrome, who both struggle to know how to be true to themselves and come to very different results, and even to daughter Violet, whose struggles are much more internal, personal, and emotional. In our culture, however, I was amazed (and, frankly, grateful) to see a major studio production recognize and announce to audiences everywhere that the sentimental declaration, "Everyone's special" actually de-specializes everyone.

In Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era, American sociologist Barry Schwartz makes a similar observation regarding the diminishing of traditional (male, European) heroes and the elevation of figures from other national, ethnic, and gender groups regardless of their contributions to history and/or society.

The U.S. Mint's latest project, therefore, is to produce a series of one-dollar coins that will feature the likeness of every president, regardless of his accomplishment. "This could be a renaissance for some our lesser-known presidents," explained the mint's director, Edmund C. Moy, to a New York Times reporter. The reporter's failing to ask Mr. Moy why the mint would ever want to replace George Washington with a lesser president is symptomatic of the great drive toward equality. Neither questioner nor respondent seemed to know that to admire all ethnic, racial, and national heroes equally is to esteem none. (Schwartz 2008: 210; my emphasis)

I'm reminded of the seriousness with which then-candidate Barack Obama suggested that his experience spear-heading a campaign to install him as the forty-fourth POTUS counted as "executive experience" and qualified him, therefore, to serve as POTUS. Perhaps Obama, in the next 3.5 or 7.5 years, will accomplish many great things (other than his obviously significant status as the first non-European POTUS). But only in a cultural milieu in which "everyone's special" could such a thing ever be uttered seriously, let alone taken seriously.

the changing social value of words

I still remember—vividly—the first time I actually heard someone refer to someone else as colored. I was nineteen, and I think I was actually naïve enough to believe that no one actually used language like that, unless they were trying to draw attention to their language. Certainly no one I knew would use that language. But this was someone in my family, and it took me a few hours to formulate any response at all.

Tonight I'm doing some reading on speed reading, both the techniques and the psychology of. I found an article, "An Approach to Speed Reading," by Joe W. Andrews (The English Journal 41/7 [1952]: 352–6), that evoked a similar reaction. Actually, my response, on a visceral level, to the words quoted below was much more acute because I hadn't noticed that the article was published in 1952. It wasn't until after I read the following paragraph that I had to find some sort of explanation for this language. At any rate, this is what made my jaw go slack:

That is the essence of the drills, and my experience indicates that the crudest execution can hardly fail to accomplish the results intended, ignoring the problem of the retarded and maladjusted, who require the individualized work with which this article is not concerned.

I should stress that Joe Andrews, according to the article, was in 1952 somehow affiliated with Kent State University (his title and qualifications are not listed), so his language must have been, it seems to me, within the bounds of appropriate professional usage at the time. And of course the tenor of this quote, on second glance, isn't the negative or condescending tone it would automatically be if such language were used today. Notice that, despite the conjunction of the terms problem, retarded, and maladjusted, Andrews is simply excluding a group or type of person from his focus and recommending them for "individualized work" rather than neglect, benign or otherwise.

When I recovered from my initial shock, though, I began to wonder: What language do we use today, as part of our professional practice, will seem backward and ill-informed fifty years from now? Will students in 2059 see Geza Vermes's book, Jesus the Jew, on the library shelf and snicker that the verboten word "Jew" was so boldly and unashamedly printed right on the spine? Will the now-standard formulations African-American, Asian-American, Native-American, or any of the other -Americans seem passé to our grandchildren? Neither of these seem likely to me, but it does seem likely that some of the language we currently find perfectly appropriate will pass out of favor.

So what? Well, I can't help but wonder how pointless much of our debates about terminology ultimately will be. Should we translate Ἰουδαῖος Jew or Judean? Did Mark write for Christians or Jesus followers? And so on. Don't get me wrong; we trade in language, and nothing subverts that trade like imprecision and the shoddy use of language. But formulations such as "non-Judean participants in the cult of Jesus," which may be more precise than the potentially misleading gentile Christian, are so unwieldy they distract from the discussion rather than contribute to it. I seem to remember, somewhere in the nether regions of my brain, that James Crossley had to defend his use of the label Christian, even though he is explicitly aware of and involved in examining the problems of projecting modern categories on ancient phenomena. I can't help but think that, perhaps, when we don't understand a person's argument it's easier for us to attack their language.

the art of finding the right words

I'm working through Everett Ferguson's Backgrounds of Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987 [third edition, 2003]) with my students as part of my graduate course, "The World of the New Testament." And every now and then I find myself feeling a personal—even a spiritual—bond with one of the ancients on account of Ferguson's knack for word choice. For example, I have a new-found appreciation for Herodotus for one simple reason:

Herodotus in the fifth century [BCE] already assumed everyone could understand Greek, if it was spoken loudly enough and sternly enough.

Visions of Americans looking for bathrooms in Mexico (or France or China or . . .) are dancing in my head

on panning a book

Over at Review of Biblical Literature Anthony Thiselton has written a rather ambivalent review of Richard Horsley's recent book, Wisdom and Spiritual Transcendence at Corinth: Studies in First Corinthians. Both of these are very careful and admirable scholars, but the tone and tenor of Thiselton's review caught my interest. I may be reading too much between the lines and seeing things that aren't there, but I got the distinct impression that Thiselton had even more to say in critique of the book. But he contented himself to commend the book "as a classic of earlier exegesis" whose "greatest disappointment lies in the bibliography and the failure to acknowledge the progress of recent scholars." I suspect the back of Thiselton's hand still stings from complementing Horsley.

I point out this rather interesting example of the genre critical book review in order to provide some guidance, to be heeded appropriately rather than head-long, to my students who are trying to learn how to critically and appreciatively review a book they did not enjoy reading.

[update: I am reminded of a similarly negative review, this one not nearly so ambivalent, which provides a helpful model for reviewing a disappointing book. See John Kloppenborg's review of Beth McCabe's, An Examination of the Isis Cult with Preliminary Exploration into New Testament Studies (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008). If a book needs to be panned it needs to be panned; but exposing and commenting upon the weaknesses of an argument takes significantly more effort than hurling epithets at its author.]

a slight variation on a common theme

I'm currently developing a lecture entitled, "Jesus and Torah," for my first-year Gospel Narratives course. Few things, for me, are as difficult to introduce in a two-hour discussion with beginning students. I'm beginning my discussion, after a brief definition of Torah, by looking at Matt 5.17–48. I understand vv 17–20 as introducing the six Antitheses of vv 21–48, and I retain the label Antitheses because I think it aptly describes the rhetorical structure of these sayings (but not Jesus' relation to/view of Torah!). Finally, I should say that I understand the entire Sermon on the Mount in strongly covenantal terms (rather than, say, ethical terms). Matthew, I think, is clearly presenting Jesus in ways that evoke the Sinai narrative, though (I think) in some surprising ways.

But in my lesson preparation I'm reading Luz's massively detailed Hermeneia commentary, and I can't help but notice that some anachronistic concepts seem to sustain his (and many others') interpretation. What's worse, the assumption I have in mind is never explicitly discussed, which makes it all the more problematic! A commentary might not be the place to engage such things, but given their effect on our exegetical work I think they deserve some attention.

Specifically, I have in mind the assumption that Christianity and Judaism were, already in the first century CE, separate and distinguishable entities. The very opening of Luz's interpretative comments on Matt 5.17–20 he employs this assumption and allows it to drive his reading of this very important passage:

By placing these verses at the beginning of the main part of the Sermon on the Mount before the antitheses, Matthew makes clear that they are fundamentally important for him. At issue here is his relationship to the Mosaic Law and thus to Judaism. (Luz, Matthew 1-7, 213; my emphasis)

I'm not at all convinced that the issue here is "his relationship to the Mosaic Law"; rather, I think the point is rather clearly the interpretation of Torah and, as emphasized in v 20, the proper observance of Torah. Of course, if Jesus ever did say anything like 5.17–20, we would struggle to explain why Jesus would have to explain to his fellow Jews that he recognized the authority of the Mosaic covenant. Certainly at the front-end of Jesus' ministry, as Matthew has placed the Sermon, we have yet to see anything that would make us think Jesus set out to live free of Torah's strictures and ordinances (Moses might have preferred "blessings and curses"). So why should Jesus have to explain his "relationship to Judaism"?

But Luz doubts the authenticity of this passage; at the very least he reads 5.17–20 as speaking "directly to the church" (213). And if Jesus, in Matthew's gospel, has yet to fall foul of Torah, the church, by the time Matthew was written, certainly had. And given the debates attested earlier in Paul's letters and later in Luke-Acts, Matthew writes to a church whose relationship to Judaism was open to question and required some explanation.

The problem with all of this, I think, is that we cannot invoke the neat distinctions between Judaism and Christianity to structure our interpretation of the NT texts. Daniel Boyarin (Dying for God [1999], Border Lines [2004]), among others, has demonstrated the messy interactions between the expressions of Judaism that became Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. We cannot helpfully think of these as two distinct phenomena at any point in the first century CE; even thinking in terms of two phenomena sends us off on the wrong path.

I haven't yet read Luz's interpretation of Matt 5.17–20; I stopped to get these ideas out of my head. But I'm suspicious that he began with what I think is a very problematic assumption: that Matthew had to clarify "his relationship to the Mosaic Law and thus to Judaism." The text offers significantly more potential, I think, if we begin instead by understanding Matthew competing with other Jews (who may or may not have identified Jesus of Nazareth as a prophet or even Israel's messiah) over how to properly understand and practice Torah.

the Jewish gospels?

Time to get back on a favorite hobby horse. In sundry ways I've been asking since 2005 what difference it makes to read the gospels as Christian literature rather than as Jewish texts (for a very blunt tool looking for such questions, see here). But I have reason to raise the question again, and I don't want to miss the opportunity.

In Craig Evans's essay, "The Jewish Christian Gospel Tradition" (in Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries [O. Skarsaune and R. Hvalvik, eds.; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007], 241–77), Evans makes the following observation:

The Jewish Gospel known to Origen may be the earliest of the Jewish Gospels (or Gospel recensions), dating perhaps to the end of the first century or, more probably, to the beginning of the second. (Evans 2007: 248)

Now for some context. First, Evans is pursuing a very difficult task, viz. "to examine the theological and practical emphases, as they may be detected, in the extant fragments of materials widely recognized as Jewish Gospels, and in closely related materials" (242). And he does so carefully and with nuance. Second, Evans spends just over three pages (242–45) discussing "Matthew: A New Testament Jewish Gospel," which he acknowledges "has been traditionally viewed as the most Jewish of the four New Testament Gospels" (242). Just over a year ago I questioned the value of the label "most Jewish", and though Evans isn't asking the same types of question I am, he is sensitive to the "profound and systemic," and even "utter," Jewishness of at least the First Gospel.

But it intrigues me that, even after the decision to apply the label "Jewish" to Matthew's gospel, Evans can still describe this fragment, which he prefers to date in the early second century, as "the earliest of the Jewish Gospels" (see above). Admittedly, Evans is referring to a very specific group of texts when he refers to "Jewish Gospels," and Matthew, I suspect by virtue of being canonical, does not fit within this group. And Evans's use of "Jewish Gospels" to refer to these specific texts—traditionally the Gospel of the Nazoraeans, the Gospel of the Ebionites, and the Gospel of the Hebrews—is entirely within the mainstream of academic parlance. Keeping in mind that I'm questioning standard practices and not Evans's specific instances of those practices, How useful is our category Jewish Gospel, and what does it reveal about us that we find this label meaningful even while recognizing the "Jewishness" of (at least) Matthew?

Is this actually a problem for biblical (and especially New Testament) research? Or am I chasing vapors?

gospels scholarship at odds with source and redaction criticism?

Okay, so this post's title is a bit of a non sequitur. Source and redaction criticism ARE gospels scholarship, so they can't be at odds, I guess. Even so, I'm very interested in the ways that our über-textual approaches to source criticism fail us when we set about reading the gospels. But first, the usual disclaimer. I am not denying that one or more of the gospel writers may have known one or more of the other gospels. Neither am I denying that earlier gospels were/may have been influential in the development and composition of later gospels. But I am questioning the assumption that the similarities between the gospels are evidence for copying, and that differences between them evidence for redacting. Source critics quite rightly insist that modern objections to copying (or, worse, plagiarism) shouldn't affect our judgments of what the gospels are or how the evangelists produced them. But my point is that the gospels themselves show that copying and editing aren't very helpful ways for thinking about their patterns of similarities and differences.

I'm currently writing a lesson on the twelve disciples that focuses on the significance of Jesus calling twelve disciples and the evidence preserved in the gospels (and Acts, Paul, and even Revelation). Of course, quite a bit of time deals with the different lists of disciples preserved in Matt 10.2–4||Mark 3.16–19||Luke 6.14–16||Acts 1.13. E. P. Sanders (Jesus and Judaism, 98ff.), of course, emphasizes the differences between the lists, while Bauckham (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 96ff.) minimizes these. Both accept that Jesus was remembered as surrounding himself with disciples, to whom he referred as the Twelve, but Bauckham's thesis requires that the Twelve refers to twelve specific, named individuals who could take (or be assigned) responsibility for the Jesus tradition.

The problem, unless I've missed something, is that the lists aren't identical. This is especially a problem for Bauckham. The differences aren't simply a matter of order; Matthew and Mark both name someone called Thaddaeus, while in both of his lists Luke mentions another Judas, this one the son of James. Critics have gone back and forth asking whether Thaddaeus was also known as Judas; I'm happy to notice that none of our texts suggest this. But there doesn't seem to be any redaction-critical motivations for changing (on the assumption of Markan [or Matthean] priority) Thaddaeus to Judas. In fact, I would be more willing to accept the opposite: That sometime after the first Easter, any remaining disciples of Jesus named Judas would have looked around for another moniker. For that matter, there doesn't seem to be any redaction-critical motivations that could explain the variations in order evident among the four lists.

For that reason, I think, both Sanders and Bauckham invoke oral tradition (or memory) to explain the variations for which we need to account. Sanders says, "In the earliest period (evidenced by 1 Cor. 15.5) noses were not counted. That it was some time before they started being counted is clear from the lists of names" (Jesus and Judaism, 101). Of course, there really is only one name from the Twelve about which there are any questions, so the extent to which the delay between an awareness of the Twelve and a list of who those twelve were is actually not very "clear" at all. Bauckham provides a more helpful theory:

It is quite intelligible that a list of this kind should be remembered as consisting of three groups, with the first name in each group a fixed point in the memory, but with the order of the other three names in each group variable. (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 98)

Admittedly, I'm not sure which source-critical assumptions, if any, Bauckham brings to his analyses. Sanders, if I'm not mistaken, is probably a neo-Griesbachian, but again I could be wrong. Regardless of which solution to the synoptic problem (a peculiarly literary problem, after all) we prefer, Matthew, Mark, and Luke (in some combination or another) should be copying from another, and the list of disciples would be a place that we would expect the most careful copying (if the names of the disciples weren't already indelibly stamped on the tradition). In other words, on the basis of some strikingly similar passages (e.g., Mark 2.1–12 parr.), we postulate that some evangelists copy from other gospels. But if, for example, Luke had Mark's list of disciples available and in front of him, why should he vary either the order of the disciples or, most significantly, substitute Judas the son of James for Thaddaeus?

So the list of disciples in the gospels, and their counterpart in Acts 1.13, suggest that the historical processes source critics have envisaged as descriptive for our gospels' composition are unlikely at least and anachronistic at worst. Even if Luke could read/had read Mark's gospel, and even if the latter was very influential over the former's composition, how do we explain the differences between their lists of apostles? Sanders can't be convincing here, because even if the precise names comprising the Twelve wasn't fixed in early Christian tradition, Luke (who replaces Thaddaeus with Judas son of James) should have known Mark's list!

So on standard source-critical readings, Luke knew his lists differed from Mark's and either didn't care or thought he was correcting Mark. And if he thought "Judas son of James" was another name for Thaddaeus, we would have expected him to tell us that this was his other name (see, for example, Acts 1.23; 13.9). We can't plausibly explain Lukan redaction of Mark here. And we can't assume (as do Sanders and Bauckham) that Luke wasn't familiar with Mark (unless we're willing to jettison source-critical assumptions completely, a move which I increasingly favor). The lists of disciples demonstrate rather trenchantly, I think, that our conception of the Jesus tradition as a textual phenomenon has misled us. Instead, we should appreciate that the Jesus tradition was a narrative world (or, in more sociological terms, a symbolic universe) enveloping, contextualizing, and giving meaning to the written texts. In this perspective, even if Luke had read Mark, Luke was more richly and dynamically rooted in the tradition itself rather than the textual expression of the tradition found in Mark's gospel.

[Update: I should have read further. Bauckham (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 98) does try to explain the variation in order, at least for the first four names, in redaction-critical terms. Notice how utterly lacking in explanatory power is Bauckham's argument. Why should Matthew and Luke, who keep both sets of brothers together, be more original? Why should Mark have any interest in binding together the three nicknamed disciples? And, most problematically, why should Luke rearrange the first four names in Acts 1.13 simply because Peter and John are prominent characters (3.1–4.31; 8.14-25) and James's death is narrated (12.2)? All of this suggests that we have misconceived what the Jesus tradition is and so missed the dynamics by which it was entextualized in the written gospels.]

what do the disciples do on their twelve thrones?

I'm writing a lesson on Jesus' selection of and relationship to the Twelve (disciples, that is), and I'm having to make a decision about the phrase, καθήσεσθε καὶ ὑμεῖς ἐπὶ δώδεκα θρόνους κρίνοντες τὰς δώδεκα φυλὰς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ (Matt 19.28; see Luke 22.30). If your Greek isn't where you'd like it to be, the traditional understanding of this phrase is "You, also, will sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (my italics). The question concerns the italicized participle, judging, which translates the participial κρίνοντες [krinontes].

The BDAG lexicon offers a lengthy discussion of κρίνω, with usages ranging from "to make a selection" (with glosses select, prefer) and on to "to pass judgment upon," whether in cognitive senses (with glosses such as decide, think, consider, etc.) or in judicial senses (with glosses such as judge, decide, condemn, etc.). The very last usage, "to ensure justice for someone" (gloss see to it that justice is done), lists only 1 Clem 8.4 and Isa 1.17 [LXX] as examples. Louw and Nida don't offer an equivalent for this last usage; they give the glosses decide, prefer, evaluate, hold a view, make legal decision, condemn, and rule. But they list Luke 22.30 under this last domain, rendering the passage, "and you will be seated upon thrones, ruling over the twelve tribes of Israel" (§37.49, my emphasis). In their view, then, κρίνω here involves far more than simply "judging." BDAG discusses this verse under the usage "to engage in a judicial process" (with the glosses judge, decide, hale before a court, condemn, and hand over for judicial punishment [see §5.b.β]), saying "occupied by those who have been divinely commissioned to judge: the 12 apostles judge the 12 tribes." They do add the caveat, "But here κ[ρίνω] could have the broader sense rule" (s.v.), but their preference is clear.

I find myself siding, with some fear and trepidation, against BDAG and with Louw and Nida. I am largely convinced by Richard Horsley's argument, in Jesus and the Spiral of Violence (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1987, 199–207), that this passage should be translated, "You yourselves will also sit on twelve thrones saving (or effecting justice for) the twelve tries of Israel." Horsley doesn't discussion Matt 12.18, 20 in this regard, but he could have. In that passage the evangelist cites a lengthy passage from Isaiah 42 (in a text-form closer to our MT readings than to the LXX), which twice uses the cognate noun κρίσις [krisis] clearly in the sense of "justice":

καὶ κρίσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν ἀπαγγελεῖ. . . . ἕως ἂν ἐκβάλῃ εἰς νῖκος τὴν κρίσιν.

kai krisin tois ethnesin apangelei. . . . heōs an ekbalē eis nikos tēn krisin.

And he will proclaim justice to the nations. . . . until he shall bring justice into victory. (Matt 12.18, 20)

I don't think Matthew 12 makes the case for Matt 19.28 (and certainly it doesn't for Luke 22.28–30), but I think it at least gives us a solid basis for understanding the κριν- root in terms of justice or restoration.

Of course, the difference between judging and effecting justice for is fairly dramatic. And of course we want to translate the passage in a way that communicates accurately the text's meaning. But here we can't deny that the act of translating the Greek is part of determining this verse's meaning (rather than simply communicating its meaning). This, of course, is always the case, but in this instance at least the stakes seem to be that much higher.

So what do you think? How should we render κρίνω [krinō] in Matt 19.28||Luke 22.28–30? What does Jesus tell his disciples they will do sitting upon the twelve thrones of Israel?

[Update: In my lecture notes I've rendered Matt 19.28, "Then Jesus said to them, 'Truly I tell you that, in the age of renewal, when the Son of Man sits upon his throne of glory, you who have followed me will also sit upon twelve thrones and mete out justice for the twelve tribes of Israel.'"]

Washington, Lincoln, slaves, war

With the July 4th celebrations last weekend and my time reading Barry Schwartz's Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Age, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about American history. And, of course, most of this thinking has been filtered through my interests in the processes and dynamics of how we remember historical figures.

So the memories of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington—both heroic figures in American memory and history, if for differing reasons and to varied degrees—is especially interesting, and particularly as these two figures relate to a vibrant issue in contemporary American political discourse: race relations. Schwartz, in his analysis of the presentation of the Emancipation Proclamation in American history textbooks between 1920–44 and 1945–present, notices a shift in this presentation. Since WWII Emancipation has become an issue of humanitarian ("civil rights") more than philosophical ("liberty") dimensions, and in history textbooks the motivations for pressing the Civil War have shifted to emphasize the moral urgency of abolishing slavery. This was not always the case.

Between 1915 and 1944 . . . textbook writers described slavery as a moral wrong, but defined emancipation as an instrument of Union victory, not an end in itself. The rationale for emancipation was to weaken the South's labor force, augment the Union's manpower, and prevent European governments from recognizing the Confederacy. (Schwartz 2008: 132)

The presentation of the Civil War in these textbooks emphasized the State ("preservation of the Union"), military battles and heroes, and so on. After WWII, the presentation of the Civil War would shift to focus on "history from below": images of slave experience and the accoutrements thereof, the emphasizing of "black contributions to the war effort" (Schwartz 2008: 133), and so on. In other words, late-twentieth-century American memory has seized on an historical event (the Emancipation Proclamation) but has reconfigured its significance from freedom to equality. The fact (indisputable, I would have thought, though such things rarely are) that nineteenth-century Americans could emancipate millions of slaves without also making the necessary provisions to ensure equality, coupled with the inconceivability of emancipation without equality in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, strongly suggest that emancipation, though we keep on using that word, did not mean [in the late 1800s and early 1900s] what we think it means.

If Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a political maneuver to pursue war goals (rather than as a moral maneuver to restore human dignity), George Washington did neither. At least, not according to a series of docudramas that ran on the History Channel on the 4th of July. Washington, in the process of configuring his army, rather confidently asserted that they (a group of men with guns rather than a trained army) would be able to fight the British (then the premier military machine in the Western world) without the aid of "negro soldiers." (Though see the section, "The Congress refuses Black enlistees" here for a different perspective.) I haven't done any research here, but according to the History Channel (I know, I know) the British, capitalizing on Washington's decision, opened up their ranks to blacks who would run away from their slave owners and enlist in His Majesty's army.

As near as I can tell, this is exactly the opposite move Lincoln would take nearly eighty-eight years ago. But the motivations of both men seem to me to flow in the same direction. Washington, trying to galvanize an army from thirteen disparate colonies with wildly divergent views of slaves and blacks, avoided putting off pro-slavery interests in order to achieve his war goal of fielding a unified fighting force against the Crown. Lincoln, trying to counter a number of military defeats in the early years of the War, sought to undermine the South's ability to meet his forces by robbing them of their labor force. Interestingly, the colonies faced a similar problem during the Revolutionary War when many men of fighting age—whom Washington refused to recruit—stopped participating in the colonial economic machine as slaves and fought with the Red Coats.

But—and here's the point—neither man seems to have been motivated to engage in race relations by the concepts of equality, civil rights, justice, or whatever. For both these seem to have been very practical decisions, so much so that we could be cynical regarding these American heroes' legacies for race relations. (We should acknowledge, however, that the relationship between Washington and his personal man-slave [!!!], William Lee, is rather ambiguous, being neither the abusive owner-slave relation of much popular depiction nor the rather egalitarian situation we who admire Washington might like it to have been.)

So my questions are as follows:

• First, How do we assess our American heritage in light of these ambiguities? I don't think we can valorize our past, which was clearly marred by realities we should not wish to recreate. But neither can we demonize our past, cut ourselves loose from it, in order to avoid those realities.
• Second, Why do we insist that people today make the right decisions for the right reasons (= for my reasons)? For example, I'm certainly no environmentalist, and I'm alarmed at the massive effort at wealth-redistribution masquerading as "cap and trade." If we want to engage in redistributing resources, that's one thing. But let's not do it while telling ourselves we're doing something else (viz., saving the planet). But as a capitalist, I'm all for conserving energy, becoming more efficient, and minimizing our impact on the world around us. Making an impact costs money, and if we can do as little of that as possible to pursue our goals, I'm all for it. But the current discussion doesn't allow people like me. There are two sides in this debate, and neither one of them seem to tolerate positions like mine, who aren't motivated by apocalyptic fears of rising oceans but who like the idea of using less gas/petrol, electricity, water, etc.
• Third (and just to end on a controversial note), Has the focus on "civil rights" over the last fifty years neglected the dynamic of "liberty"? Do we need to stamp out racism, bigotry, and hatred, and make everyone love everyone else? If so, are we supposed to hate and discriminate against bigots? If not, can we let bigots and racists and others be who they want to be and live the consequences of their decisions and at the same time provide a social context in which the traditional objects of hatred, bigotry, and discrimination are empowered to live fulfilling lives, pursue their goals, and enjoy liberty?

I have answers I prefer to the first two questions, but this third one genuinely stumps me. Perhaps I've asked the question in an unhelpful way. Or perhaps the question itself is unhelpful. I don't think civil rights and liberty are the same thing, but I don't want to suggest that they are opposites, either. I guess I'm asking, Do we think we've been pursuing both up till now, and if not, How do we do so?

BibleWorks 8

I have access, via my institution's software license and Parallels, to BibleWorks 7. Next week I will be upgraded to BW8, and I'm getting excited about messing around with its features. If you're a JBC student, be sure to check out BW8 on any campus computer when you arrive in the fall (we'll have fifteen licenses available for concurrent student use). Also, notice that Brandon Wason and Polycarp both give some explanation of their experiences with BW8. If you're looking for tips on how others use the software, these are as useful places to begin as any.

On Plagiarism (or, An Essay I Just Now Wrote)

Last Thursday's InsideHigherEd.com had a great piece on plagiarism by G. Thomas Couser. And, after looking at it again just now, the comments are also worth a quick glance.

I once caught a student plagiarizing when I noticed that her writing had suddenly become, well, coherent and just plain grammatical. When I called her into my office and confronted her, she cried and insisted that she didn't mean to cheat (It must have been an accident!) and that she didn't knowingly copy whole strings of phrases from her book. I did show a bit of mercy and didn't levy the maximum penalty, and in a final bit of justice she ended up failing the course anyway.

But the best part of the story comes after I confronted her. About fifteen minutes after she left my office, I got an e-mail from the Dean of Students informing me that she was complaining because I implicitly questioned her integrity! I couldn't believe it! I thought I had questioned her integrity in no uncertain terms.

And just for some perspective, I would like to say that I have been pleasantly surprised by my students over the last three years. While maybe one in thirty of my students gets caught cheating (I'm sure more do it, but that's still a very low figure), the majority of men and women who come through my classes have responded very well to the challenges I try to build into my syllabi.

moral mediocrity and the influence of media dynamics

In Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era (which I originally mentioned here), American sociologist Barry Schwartz discusses "Moral Mediocrity" (113–4) as a factor in the ebb of Abraham Lincoln's aura in the second half of the twentieth century. Moral mediocrity doesn't refer to the decline of America's social fabric (as it might in some conservative circles) but rather to the shift from more to less socially conscious cultural patterns, from less to more individually centered ways of being.

In Schwartz's words,

Every society moves alternately from one phase to another, from moral passion to moral mediocrity, from eras of "collective effervescence" wherein the nation's sacredness is felt and its myths and symbols reaffirmed, to eras in which the presence of sacred myths and symbols recedes. During the 1950s, the United States found itself somewhere between these two states: morally passionate, but less so than it had been; morally mediocre, but less so than it would become. (Schwartz 2008: 113)

At any rate, it wasn't Schwartz's comments on moral mediocrity that sent me back to my blog. Rather, it was an observation about heroes and celebrities.

That television has brought into prominence entertainers and athletes whose celebrity has overwhelmed the public's interest in the great figures of history is certain. These celebrities, in many ways inferior to their audience, do the opposite of what great men did. "The celebrity cult," Orrin Klapp observed in 1962, "celebrates the triumph of ordinariness—charm without character, showmanship without ability, bodies without minds, information without wisdom. Hero-worship looks horizontally, even downward, to a 'man like myself.'" Heroes, as Klapp defines them, are no longer great men [sic]. (Schwartz 2008: 114)

Klapp's description of celebrity cult as "showmanship without ability, bodies without minds," and so on is at least as relevant in 2009 as it would have been in 1962. I'm not interested in arguing that society is going downhill, to hell in a handbasket, or anything like that. American culture has always had its strengths; it has also always had its weaknesses, and we have been swapping these for those since the eighteenth century. But our gains in historical knowledge and awareness (with respect to our heroes and their life-sized [rather than larger-than-life] personae) come at the expense of some losses with respect to our moral and societal ideals. Epic heroes may not be historically authentic or socially sophisticated, but they inspire and challenge in ways that real-life people never can. We gain one; we lose the other.

But one of the things I appreciate about Schwartz's analyses (see the bibliography in Structuring Early Christian Memory for more of Schwartz's works) is his ability to move beyond simplistic conclusions to appreciate and comment upon the complex dynamics behind social commemorative patterns. Besides memory, I am also very interested in media criticism (start here for a helpful précis). But one of the perennial problems among media critics is an overly deterministic view of media. Too often scholars assume that changes in media (from oral to written, from written to print, from print to electronic, etc.) result in specific, even inevitable changes in social as well as psychological patterns. So Walter J. Ong speaks of "oral noetics," and Werner H. Kelber of an "oral synthesis." And these scholars stand squarely in a venerable academic tradition (see the works of McLuhan, Havelock, Goody, and many others), but they have overestimated the consequences of shifts in media.

With respect to the passage cited above, Schwartz does not assume that the rise of television caused or resulted in the moral mediocrity mentioned earlier. Television may have enabled Americans to more readily replace traditional heroes with popular celebrities, and it may even have enabled them to do so in larger numbers. But television did not cause people to ditch their heroes in favor of Brangelina. Media dynamics are vehicles as much as they are causes of social changes.

Turning to media criticism and New Testament studies, scholars have been prolific over the last two plus decades identifying and explaining the results of the shift from oral traditions to written gospels. In Kelber's case, the shift from (a written!) Q to Mark is presumed to disrupt the pre-Markan Jesus tradition (Traditionsbruch) and create something entirely new. Arguments such as these strike me as overstated. Yes, media dynamics are important. But perhaps we need to think about how media dynamics facilitated social and cultural transformations that were already underway among Jesus' first-century followers (and their social and cultural milieux) rather than taking deterministic views of oral and scribal media.