E P Sanders is perhaps the best protestant New Testament historian/Biblical theologian. His work on the Jewishness of Jesus, placing Jesus within the proper historical context is groundbreaking and is the foundation for much of the great work done by Jewish New Testament historians like Paula Eisenbaum. I enjoy reading Jewish commentaries on the New Testament. Eisenbaum's book PAUL WAS NOT A CHRISTIAN is one of those books that just blew my whole world open. I never looked at the New Testament the same again.
Sanders writes about the New Testament's oral foundation, something that wasn't reflected upon enough until he came along. Sanders thinks about the stories of Jesus being broken into what he calls 'pericopes', simply small stories from and/or about Jesus that were kept alive orally. They include snippets from Jesus lives, lessons he taught, and many of the parables. The Gospel writers, when they decided to write down the story of Jesus' life, organized these pericopes into a narrative form. But most of what they had was simple these pericopes, these snippets. They really had little if any guiding light as to how to create a narrative out of them. That is why the same story will appear in all of the Gospels, but at different times. It is the reason why, for instance, the Gospel of John can have the story of Jesus clearing the Temple at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, while all the other gospels put that event towards the end.
One may think that so long as the stories are true, the order in which they are placed doesn't matter all that much. But in point of fact the writers of the Gospels had great power to influence the picture of Jesus we have, by how they placed the pericopes. One of my favorite examples, because it kind of came to me spontaneously, was the Parable of the Talents.
In Matthew, this story is surrounded by others: the prediction of the destruction of the Temple, the lesson of the faithful and unfaithful servant, the Parable of the Ten Virgins and the lesson about the Judgment of the Nations. Surrounded by these stories, the Parable of the Talents is about complacency in one's moral duties. One of the chief concerns of Matthew is the growing number of Christians who seem to be followers of Jesus in name only. These people lacked a deep moral commitment, and seemed to think that they could gain heaven if they believed in Jesus and went to meetings occasionally. Matthew emphasizes the law as no other Gospel does, in part to emphasize the fact that not all those who call on the Name of Jesus will necessarily be saved. Actions are as important as faith, in Matthew.
So the Parable of the Talents is about 'once-a-week Christians', Christians who believe and perhaps go to church from time to time, but who have made no fundamental commitment to a new way of life. Matthew's Jesus (and I use that phrase deliberately) warns us that a religiosity based on fear, seeking only to avoid God's wrath, will never be enough. Love of God and neighbor, which transforms one's life, is equally important if one wants to receive salvation. It is about putting one's all behind the Christian life, and not simply doing the minimal amount to try to avoid hell out of fear of God. That is the meaning of the parable, as Matthew presents it.
But in Luke, the pericope of the Parable of the Talents is placed differently. It follows the conversion of the Tax Collector and precedes the entry into Jerusalem. It is prefaced with a statement about the attitude of some Jews towards Jesus' expected entry into Jerusalem: they expected Jesus to establish a political Kingdom. Here the focus of the parable is not on the servants, but on the master, who here is a king. The parable acts as a warning that God's political kingdom will not come until after the "master" (Jesus) goes away for a while and comes back. It is to the return of Jesus after His death that people should look, rather than His entry into Jerusalem.
So the same story is given different meanings, simply by the placement and a few editorial changes. The point being that even if one believes that the Gospel writers invented none of what they wrote themselves, the editorial power in placing the stories is immense. This reinforces what I've always said: the Gospel tell us as much about the time when they were written and who wrote them than they do about who they are about, maybe more. That doesn't mean that nothing of Jesus is in these words, quite the contrary. But remembering the power of placement is important when approaching the text.
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