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Characters’ Responses to Miracles in the Gospels (Part 2)

11. September 2017 | Jordash Kiffiak | Keine Kommentare |

What traditional influences lie behind the recurrent patterns of responses that are found in all four of the Gospels? In this second and final post on my recently published monograph, Responses in the Miracle Stories of the Gospels: Between Artistry and Inherited Tradition, I summarise the findings in the book’s second section. I described the contribution made by the first portion of the book, entitled “Towards Artistry,” in an earlier post. The analysis there makes it clear that the motif in question – descriptions of characters’ responses of feeling, speech, physical actions and so forth to miracles – is used with versatility and for a variety of purposes throughout each of the Gospels. Given the broad diversity in usage, it is remarkable that the Gospels still hold so much in common with regard to the responses. In the book’s second section, “Towards Tradition,” I investigate the possible reasons for the commonalities not only among Matthew, Mark and Luke (the Synoptic Gospels), but also among all four of the Gospels.

I examine first of all, in chapter six, the question of the interrelations of the Gospels, including possible literary source material and oral tradition specific to Jesus which informed the authors of the Gospels. Then, in chapter seven, I consider what sort of ancient story-telling patterns, more generally speaking, have likely influenced the formation and development of the miracle stories about Jesus.

 

Literary Dependence and the Role of Oral Tradition

Assuming the Two Document Hypothesis[1] – namely,  that Mark and Q (a hypothetical literary source) were written independently and were both used by Matthew and Luke – I approach the question of literary dependence and the role of oral tradition on the composition of the Gospels from a number of angles, in the book’s lengthiest chapter, “The Interrelations of the Gospels” (chapter six). The more general considerations, involving statistical analysis, produce interesting results. For all four of the Gospels a statistically significant distinction between epiphanic stories (such as the stilling of the storm or the angelophany at the empty tomb) and other miracle stories (notably healings and exorcisms) is seen on the basis of a story’s setting and the kind of characters responding.[2] In all of the Synoptic Gospels a further criterion for the distinction is the kind of feeling contained in the response (fear versus amazement).[3] “In private settings followers of Jesus respond, typically with fear, to epiphanies, while in public contexts other people respond, often with amazement, to healings, exorcisms and other such miracles” (pp. 656–657). These data, taken together, offer a very strong indication that the patterning found in the gospel miracle stories did not arise by chance. Rather intentional human activity is responsible for bringing the patterns about.

What sort of influences might be responsible for the intricate patterns in the miracle stories throughout the Jesus tradition? Literary dependence alone cannot reasonably explain the results of the statistical analysis, assuming the Two Document Hypothesis and even the Fourth Gospel’s direct or indirect use of one or more of the Synoptics. For the differences of content between John and the Synoptics – John hardly follows Mark or the other gospels closely, especially for the miracle stories – makes the similarities of story-telling patterning stand out like a sore thumb. “The resulting picture of the Johannine composer’s editorial procedure becomes too difficult to swallow.” (p. 602).

It is much more reasonable to assume that the common patterning arose, at least in part, from story-telling conventions in the oral tradition about Jesus. The impact of this oral tradition is widely felt, exercising influence on Mark, Q, John and the materials unique to Luke and to Matthew. The significance of the indebtedness to such tradition is all the more striking, given the Gospels’ tendencies towards variation, even artistry in the employment of responses – a point drawn out at length in the preceding chapters. In addition to (and at various points potentially more important than) the influence coming through lines of literary dependence, the common patterning in the Gospels likely results from each author’s familiarity with it either as an audience member when oral tradition was performed or as an oral performer.

While much of New Testament scholarship has relied on inadequate – and often outdated – models of oral tradition, the picture of the place of miracle stories in the Jesus tradition has remained hazy. But significant advances have been made in recent years. My analysis draws especially on the work of Eric Eve and Rafael Rodríguez.[4] Using various concepts from modern theory about oral tradition, also social memory, I am able to explain the statistically significant features of the responses studied, as well as other aspects of the responses that are held in common by the Gospels.

In essence, the new approach to oral tradition argues that in oral performance the meaning inherent in traditional content, also forms, is more important than any meaning potentially conferred on it through the innovation of a particular oral performer in a given rendition of some material. Each new performance of traditional material draws on a pre-existing, circumambient tradition for the meaning of themes, types of stories and so forth, including potentially even smaller features, like phrases. Thus, a new oral performance of a story in the Jesus tradition, for example, derives its meaning from previous oral performances of that story, as well as from other aspects of the tradition about Jesus that are known to audience and performer. The circumambient tradition about Jesus includes also his larger story, involving his teaching, training of disciples, conflicts with authorities, performances of mighty deeds, eventual trial and execution and so forth.

 

Applying the theory to the responses, I assume that the meaning of any response of a given miracle story is primarily inherent. That is to say, the sense of the response derives from the way it resonates – not primarily within the story in question, but more importantly – within the greater narrative about Jesus in the circumambient tradition. This approach sheds much light, I believe, on the common features of responses I have observed. The very pronounced distinction between epiphanic and non-epiphanic miracle stories on the basis of private/public settings, followers/others as respondents and the response feeling (Synoptics only) of fear/amazement constitutes a set of story-telling conventions to consistently reinforce an insider perspective. It is as though through it, the communities involved state and re-state, in story form, the claim that “only we, the followers of Jesus, were privileged to see, in private, the more powerful mighty deeds and other miraculous events associated with Jesus – events which in turn evoked a more intense affective response from us. Only we had the secret window into who he really was.” That the epiphanies occur less frequently in the tradition, of course, reinforces the special nature of these occurrences.

Another important distinction among responses, a qualitative one, arises when data from all four of the Gospels is analysed statistically. Often in the narrative of a given gospel, responses are depicted as in some way inadequate or worse in miracle stories prior to Jesus’ resurrection. Assessment of this kind is based on the unfolding of the broader narrative. After Jesus’ resurrection, however, miracle stories contain the respective narrative’s most positive responses. When the qualitative data of the responses are analyzed collectively, I observe a statistically significant distinction between responses for pre- and post-resurrection contexts.[5] Likely this pattern, too, did not arise by chance.

Yet a hypothesis of literary dependence on Mark as the sole explanation for the origin of this pattern is insufficient, owing to special similarities between, Matthew, Luke and John. For each of these gospels has a series of epiphanic episodes subsequent to Jesus’ resurrection with positives responses, while Mark (in its extant form, ending at 16.8) contains but one post-resurrection story with a qualitatively inferior response.[6]

Positing that this qualitative distinction among responses between pre- post- resurrection miracle stories was already a feature of the circumambient oral tradition provides a satisfying explanation of the data. For in an oral performance, an enthusiastic response, even praise, in a healing story would be implicitly compared with the later comprehension of Jesus by his followers, encountering him after his resurrection, and their far superior responses of appreciation and recognition of him.

Thus, in addition to an insider perspective, a post-resurrection perspective characterizes the oral tradition about Jesus. Not even Jesus’ followers, despite their privileged, insider perspective, can adequately respond to the miraculous deeds and other events surrounding his ministry leading up to his crucifixion and return to life. Encountering angels and/or Jesus after his resurrection is necessary to bring about full appreciation of him. Through the story-telling patterns, communities of early followers communicate that “only after Jesus rose from the dead did we – and only we – finally grasp who he is.” The story-telling technique may have served as the community’s attempt to explain and justify to themselves, if not also to others, their change in attitude towards Jesus after his ignoble death and evident resurrection. “This explanatory – perhaps also apologetic – aspect of the circumambient tradition seems to have a dominant role” (p. 614).

 

Contents and Nature of Q

My analysis challenges conventional approaches to the size, contents and nature of the hypothetical document Q. First, I offer general considerations. Typically, Q is envisioned as being essentially equivalent to the Double Tradition, namely the material found in both Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark. But some basic observations on the argumentation supporting this picture bring it into question. Judging from the way that Matthew and, especially, Luke approach incorporating Mark’s material into their own gospel accounts, one should expect that a substantial part of Q is not reproduced by both Matthew and Luke, but rather is reproduced by just one of these gospels or, possibly, does not appear in either of them. It is reasonable to expect Q to be much larger than the Double Tradition. Given that some of the Triple Tradition (material shared uniquely by Matthew, Mark and Luke) is generally understood as contained in Q, one should submit all of the Triple Tradition to scrutiny, without prejudice, as potential Q material. In conjunction with other critics of conventional wisdom on Q, I also affirm that Q had more narrative structure than is commonly conceived. Miracles, too, are given more prominence in Q than is typically recognized. Q is not a “sayings gospel.”

Second, I turn to miracle stories likely contained in Q, with special attention given to the use of the response motif. Two miracle stories found in the Double Tradition are regularly included in scholars’ conceptions of the hypothetical document – the healing associated with the Capernaum centurion and the exorcism concerned with the accusation of collusion with Beelzebul. I ask whether other miracle stories, found in the Triple Tradition, might also reasonably be assigned to Q. In addition to re-examining known Minor Agreements (telling agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark), I also consider some previously undiscussed ones. The analysis of the story of the healing of the paralytic, focusing on Minor Agreements, especially those of a special quality, leads to the probable conclusion that a non-Markan version from common literary source is influencing Matthew and Luke. The source is likely Q. Two Minor Agreements are uniquely important here – a moderately lengthy phrase (when no agreement between Mark and another gospel against the remaining one can best it) and the substitution or inclusion of fear (Mark has amazement only) by Matthew and Luke, respectively. The analysis suggests also that Q possibly contained the stilling of the storm, though in this case related versions of the story in oral performance influencing Matthew and Luke is probably a more satisfying explanation. Again, the force of the Minor Agreements in this story is strong. Again affective aspects of responses, in particular, play an important role. Matthew’s and Luke’s inclusion of amazement (versus Mark’s fear only) in the response to this epiphanic miracle – in light of the pronounced difference between affective responses in epiphanic (fear) and non-epiphanic (amazement) stories throughout the Synoptic tradition – is a telling sign that these two gospels are drawing on an alternative (non-Markan) story-telling tradition here. Previous studies, assuming that fear and amazement are essentially equivalent, have missed these important data in both stories. Multiple versions of these two stories mean ultimately that, in all probability, we have identifiable miracle stories that were part of the oral tradition about Jesus, including one, the stilling of the storm, that is epiphanic.

Third, analysis of use of the response motif in Q miracle stories has vast implications for not only the nature and original use of Q but also the time and place in which the core of the miracle stories in the Jesus tradition first received their defining features. The inversion of expectations in the Capernaum centurion episode, where Jesus becomes amazed and extolls the faith of the supplicant before the miracle’s performance, is a key part of the argument here. Typically, of course, in stories about Jesus responses of amazement, also commendatory speech, come after a healing or exorcism and involve the watching crowd or beneficiaries of the miracle – Jesus never responds in such a way to a mighty deed he performs. But with access only to Q, hearers and readers of the text would have too few miracle stories for knowledge of this convention arise. However, when Q is understood as an oral-derived text, as it should be, then the inversion of expectations in this story becomes intelligible. Repeated oral performances of various miracle stories containing responses of amazement and speech among circles of Jesus’ early followers would foster widespread knowledge of the story-telling convention. With such backdrop, provided from a context of oral performances, the inversion of expectations in this story would be recognizable for both reader of Q and audience. The ramifications are profound. Already at the time of the composition of Q – namely, at an early stage among Jewish followers of Jesus in the land of Israel – miracle stories about Jesus already were an integral part of the oral tradition about him, replete with their own defining characteristics. Moreover, the community responsible for Q not only was not fixated on Jesus as a teacher, but also thoroughly embraced Jesus as miracle performer.

What is more, this recognition affirms an argument made by Justin Taylor that the Gospels carried out a literary revolution in their time. Taylor observes that each of the Gospels moves fluidly between various levels of narration when moving from, for example, a teaching episode to a story of healing – the Gospels swtich between low mimetic, high mimetic, romantic and mythic levels. Such a literary procedure is a remarkable innovation in the ancient world. My analysis indicates that similar switching between these narration levels occurred already at an early stage in performances of oral tradition about Jesus – tradition upon which the Gospels and Q all drew. This oral tradition originated in a social context that was geographically and temporally quite close to Jesus, most likely with individuals among the oral performers and in the respective audiences having had a personal connection to him. Concurring with Taylor, I submit that, ultimately, the impact that Jesus had upon his contemporaries, including his followers, is the best explanation for the said literary revolution – and the related phenomena in the oral tradition preceding and contemporary to the Gospels.

 

Jewish versus non-Jewish Context – A Preliminary Analysis

In the final chapter of analysis, I examine, in view of the responses to miracles in the Gospels, the possible traditional influences on the gospel miracle stories. In the first task of this analysis, necessarily preliminary in nature, I consider the question of whether distinctively Jewish or non-Jewish story-telling patterns can be identified – and, if so, which pattern is more likely exerting influence on the miracle stories in the Jesus tradition. This question is of considerable interest, given the ubiquity of the responses in the Gospels and a strong tendency toward unfair treatment of the comparative literature, even by scholars who are giants in the field of New Testament studies. Typically, non-Jewish sources are favoured, while many Jewish sources are given scant attention or simply ignored.

To answer the question of Jewish versus non-Jewish influences, I examine 48 stories, looking specifically at the types of response components that occur. The sets of 24 Jewish and 24 non-Jewish stories, respectively, are further subdivided into groups of 12 stories, according to the criterion of epiphanic versus non-epiphanic miracles. (Beyond the number of stories, a further limitation is that for the Jewish sources the texts examined are mostly in Hebrew.) I observe a unique relationship between the Jewish sources and the Gospels, identified on the basis of four features shared by these two corpuses but not shared by the non-Jewish corpus. First, the Jewish stories share a specific set of commonly occurring responses components, thereby drawing the epiphanic and non-epiphanic stories together as larger group. The Gospels also share such a set of response components. Second, the two corpuses actually have in common a number of the said elements – notably, feelings, speech and visual sensation. Third, prostration, which does not appear in the non-Jewish sources used for comparison, occurs in both the Jewish stories and the Gospels. Fourth, in these two corpuses alone fear is closely associated with an epiphany.

Of course, employing categories of “Jewish” and “non-Jewish” is not the only meaningful way to divide up the sources. In a more comprehensive study of miracle stories – a post-doctoral project at the University of Zurich, with Prof. Jörg Frey – I am examining possible, distinctive features of miracle stories in other groupings of sources, such as historiographical works written in Greek, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Still, given the preliminary analysis, published in this monograph, it would seem already that considering the Jewish versus non-Jewish distinction is a promising research direction.

 

“Minor” and “Major” Miracles of Elijah and Elisha

In the second task of the analysis, using the common scholarly recognition that Jesus’ mighty deeds are often similar to those of Elijah and Elisha as a springboard, I consider the responses in light of similarities and differences between the gospel miracle stories and the “minor” and “major” miracles of Elijah and Elisha in the Hebrew Bible and related tradition. The major miracles are those of national significance, while the minor miracles concern the needs of individual or local parties, often involving a provision of consumable food goods, healings and resurrections – mighty deeds that are similar in type to many of those performed by Jesus. (The minor vs. major distinction for Elijah and Elisha’s miracles holds true for both the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint, also its Hebrew Vorlage.) Responses are not commonly narrated in stories of these “minor” miracles. Alternatively, stories of the “major” miracles of the two ancient prophets, also of Moses, often do contain responses. Judging from four relevant Greek texts that survive, there seems to be no tendency toward adding responses in retellings of the stories of Elijah and Elisha in and around the first century CE. Thus one cannot explain the voluminous presence of responses in the gospel miracle stories from the reception of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint in the Second Temple period. I suggest a different approach: the responses, associated with ancient prophets’ great miracles, are intentionally narrated in the telling of Jesus’ mighty deeds (comparable in kind to the ancient prophets’ minor miracles) in a bid to legitimise him. Keying stories of Jesus in this way to the grand ones associated with his more ancient counterparts serves to legitimise Jesus as a worthy agent of God, comparable to even the greatest prophets of Jewish tradition.

 

Jonah, the Crossing of the Reed Sea and the Stilling of the Storm

For the third task, a probative exercise, I examine the role that the response motif plays in the stilling of the storm, an episode present in Matthew, Mark and Luke, in light of its recognized parallelism with two related stories in earlier Jewish tradition: the rescue at sea in Jonah 1 and the crossing of the Reed Sea described at various points in the Jewish scriptures, notably in Exodus 14. Once the parallelism is established, it is actually the differences between stories that help create meaning. Responses are important both for keying the Synoptic story to its counterparts and for injecting the gospel miracle story with special meaning. Notably, Jesus becomes the sole object of the disciples’ response in the Synoptic Gospels, taking the place of God in the responses both of the Gentile sailors (Jonah) and of the Israelites (Exodus 14). But unlike their more ancient counterparts, the disciples do not understand the identity of the person in focus in their response, the deliverer from life-threatening danger. In this way, the finer meaning of the stilling of the storm, which is appreciated in light of the parallel stories it draws on, fits comfortably with the picture of the circumambient tradition I have argued for in the preceding chapter, especially as regards both the insider perspective and the post-resurrection perspective. The analysis supports a Jewish context as more relevant than a non-Jewish context for understanding the gospel miracle stories. Moreover, the analysis provides further evidence that the stilling of the storm – an epiphany story – originated early on, in the land of Israel, among Jewish followers of Jesus. Interestingly, in this private epiphany story for an insider group, Jesus is portrayed as having a grandeur that surpasses the great figures of Israel’s sacred past and that, in key respects, makes him comparable to God.

Jordash Kiffiak is working on a postdoctoral project (Forschungskredit) at the University of Zurich with Prof. Jörg Frey (Responses to Miracles in Jewish and Non-Jewish Narratives) investigating whether Jewish or non-Jewish miracle stories provide a better context for understanding the response motif found in the Gospels. He is the author of Responses in the Miracle Stories of the Gospels: Between Artistry and Inherited Tradition (Mohr Siebeck, 2017) and Living Christian Aramaic: Introduction Part 1 (Biblical Language Center, 2017), a textbook for beginner’s Syriac, co-authored with Niek Arentsen and Randall Buth. Since 2007 he has taught ancient languages – biblical Hebrew, Syriac and, especially, Hellenistic Greek – using innovative, communicative approaches at various institutes, including the University of Zurich.

Footnotes

[1] In two earlier chapters I already addressed the Synoptic Problem to a limited extent, though I did not discuss this point in the previous post. In each of these chapters, in a section dedicated to the Synoptic Problem, I examine the implications of the the response data on the strengths and weaknesses of the two most well-known rival hypotheses to the standard Two Document Hypothesis. I show that the standard hypothesis is superior to the Two Gospel Hypothesis and Farrer Hypothesis, owing to the unduly complex and improbable picture that emerges for those hypotheses.

[2] I use Pearson’s chi-squared test of independence to the combined set of unique stories drawn from all four of the Gospels under the null hypothesis that stories of epiphanies are statistically similar to all of the remaining miracle stories in their frequencies of private settings and of established followers as respondents. The probability that the difference in settings observed arose by chance can be ruled out with 99.97% confidence. The probability that the difference in respondents arose by chance is virtually zero (the p-value represents a level of significance of 5σ).

[3] Here I apply Pearson’s chi-squared test to the combined set of unique responses drawn from the miracle stories in all three of the Synoptic Gospels. The probability that the difference in feelings – fear at epiphanies and amazement at other miracles – arose by chance is extremely low (the p-value represents a level of significance of 4σ). (It is perhaps worth noting in passing that material in John, beyond the responses, also contributes to the association of amazement with healings, also teachings, that we find in the Synoptic Gospels.)

[4] See Rafael Rodríguez, Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance, and Text, LNTS (JSNTSup), 407 (London: T&T Clark, 2010) and Oral Tradition and the New Testament: A Guide for the Perplexed (London; New York: Bloomsbury; T&T Clark, 2014) and Eric Eve, Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2014 [originally publ. 2013. London: SPCK]).

[5] Applying Pearson’s chi-squared test to the combined set of unique responses drawn from the miracle stories in all four of the Gospels, there is less than 1% probability that the difference in pre- and post-resurrection contexts observed arose by chance.

[6] Even if Mark originally contained one or more appearances of Jesus, which evoked positive responses, the response in the initial story (16.1–8) would still differ markedly from the positive ones in the initial post-resurrection stories in each of the other gospels.

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