BOOKS, FAITH, WORLD & MORE

FOR THE RECORD ON JESUS
Reviews of Recovering Jesus and of Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes

Daniel Hertzler

Recovering Jesus: The Witness of the New Testament, by Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld. Brazos Press, 2007.

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels, by Kenneth E. Bailey. IVP Academic, 2008.

Of the making of books about Jesus there seems to be no end. These two books commend themselves because each author walks the narrow path between scholarship and the needs of ordinary folks who want to be apprized of the findings of scholarship without being overwhelmed by the details.

Yoder Neufeld is aware that his is a delicate task. On the one hand, there are the skeptical scholars such as John Dominic Crossan and others in the Jesus Seminar, along with the implied skepticism of the students he teaches. On the other hand, he is committed to being faithful to the tradition as indicated by the subtitle.

His position is evidently in line with The Second Naiveté Mark I. Wallace describes in his own book. Wallace proposes that "A hermeneutic of the second naiveté will focus on that give and take between text and audience; it will maintain that Scripture is more like a lively and open-ended game between its world and the world of the reader than it is a closed book whose meaning is exhausted by the standard theological lexicon" (119).

Yoder Neufeld is very careful. He reviews repeatedly the scholarly assumptions that thus and so about Jesus is impossible or not likely. Yet he states his position early on. "The ‘stuff’ of Jesus matters a great deal to me as a believer. As much as I am a believer, I am at the same time a scholar. . . . I believe that it is appropriate and illuminating to bring to the study of Jesus the tools of a scholar who is trained not only in theology, but in the study of history and literature, especially as they relate to the biblical literature" (19).

So from time to time he reviews scholarly challenges to the tradition and then states his opinion, not generally as dogma, but more as possibility. From this perspective, he works his way through the topics of importance, beginning with the four gospels and how they are both similar and different. He concludes that what we can know about Jesus is tied up with the witnesses. "If we send the witnesses out of the room, the interview with Jesus is over, because he turns out to have left with them. How frustrating for the scholar who wishes it were different. But, from the perspective of a believer, should it be any different?" (79).

At points as I work my way through the book, I grow a little weary of the pace. Yet when he comes up with generalizations from time to time, we are able to follow him. "Opinions vary quite radically," he says, "on such centrally important questions as to how God intervenes in human affairs, that is, whether there are miracles of this kind" (114-115). Well, of course he is right.

Regarding the birth of Jesus, he writes, "My own position is one that recognizes a mystery at the core of these narratives, one that neither science nor history are in a position to judge" (121). The second naiveté, no doubt, and, if we wish, we are welcome to stand there with him. If not, it will be up to us to account for what we find in two gospels about the birth of Jesus. He goes on to point out that, of the New Testament writers, only Matthew and Luke speak of the virginal conception, so he leaves the issue somewhat open-ended.

He wonders about physical elements and symbolic elements in the account of the curing of the Gerasene Demoniac without coming down hard on either side. Regarding the account of the so-called triumphal entry he writes, "Despite the evident difficulties such data present to the historian, there is no reason to think Jesus could not have deliberately wanted to signal to his followers his mission as a peaceable messiah" (233).

As for the death of Jesus, he is careful to avoid overloading either the Jews or the Romans with the responsibility. For the resurrection, he reviews certain interpretations from those who see "the New Testament accounts as the rough equivalent of a scientific report" to those who "think of the resurrection as a mythological way of expressing the ongoing relevance of Jesus" (287). He concludes by reference to Matthew’s observation that "some doubted" in 28:17 and finally with John 28:29, "Blessed are those who have not seen yet have come to believe" (289).

The final chapter "Jesus—Christ and Lord" addresses matters of particular concern to Anabaptists. In this he painstakingly works his way through Old Testament, Inter-testament and New Testament sources to pursue the question of what sort of person Jesus was understood to be, focusing on the titles ascribed to him. "The basic question this chapter intends to explore is this: how did the man from Nazareth come to be venerated as Son of God, or even as God?" (297). He borrows from James Dunn the concept "spectrum of respect" and finds that "At one end of the spectrum Jesus is only human, however special; at the other end he is solely divine" (300).

After reviewing the evidence from titles as well as "christological Hymns," he concludes that "Our investigation has shown that both humanity and divinity are required to give a faithful rendering of the Jesus who emerges in the New Testament" (327). He offers this as his position for the benefit of all who care about the issues.

This, of course, is our tradition, and probably his grandmother could have said much the same. But in these days of scholarship and technological wonders, some of us cannot be satisfied with the first naiveté. If not, we are welcome to follow Yoder Neufeld in his articulation of the second.

Kenneth Bailey’s unique contribution to scriptural interpretation comes from having been born in the Middle East and spending his professional life there. In her endorsement of the book, Edith M. Humphrey of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary writes, "Kenneth Bailey does not offer new perspectives, but ideas frequently as old as the earliest church and as the ancient church fathers, that may well be new to many of his Western readers."

Bailey’s specialty has been the parables of Jesus, and I have his combined volume, Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes published by Eerdmans in 1983. It is a quite sophisticated study of parable structure. But what interests me more than the structural studies are his observations from Middle Eastern culture. Regarding the parable of the Prodigal Son he writes, "What the father does in this homecoming scene can best be described as a series of dramatic actions calculated to protect the boy from the hostility of the village and to restore him into fellowship within the community. These actions began with the father running down the road. An Oriental nobleman with flowing robes never runs anywhere. To do so is humiliating" (Poet and Peasant, 181).

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes deals with textual and structural matters but generally on a more popular level. Bailey applies his method to a variety of subjects: The Birth of Jesus, The Beatitudes, The Lord’s Prayer, Dramatic Actions of Jesus, Jesus and Women, and Parables of Jesus. Anyone wishing to preach or teach from the texts covered will find Bailey’s interpretations useful.

The author acknowledges the "gathered up" nature of the material when he writes in the preface,

This book came about in stages. Some of the chapters were originally transcriptions of professionally recorded video lectures. . . .

Other chapters are composed of new material on studies of parables that I published nearly three decades ago. The majority of these chapters are presented here for the first time. . . .

The chapters are a selection. . . . The goal is to offer brief glimpses of some of the treasures that await us as Western isolation from Middle Eastern interpretation of the Bible is slowly brought to an end. (9)

Bailey’s method is to begin with a study of the text and enrich it with historical references, Old Testament correlations, cultural interpretations, and theological observations. In addition to his knowledge of biblical languages, he has access to various Middle Eastern translations.

In the first chapter he seeks to redeem the much-maligned innkeeper of Luke 2, who is said to have found no place for Joseph and Mary in his "inn." Bailey observes that since Joseph "was descended from the house and family of David" (Luke 2:4) he would have had numbers of relatives in Bethlehem, and any of them would have been eager to provide lodging. As documentation for this point, he says the word for inn could also be translated as "guest room." And from the arrangement of a typical peasant dwelling, which he shows in this chapter, putting Jesus in a manger was not anything unusual. He would have been right in with the family. A footnote on page 36 refers to a Christmas musical Bailey has written entitled Open Hearts in Bethlehem (Westminster/John Knox, 2005) which is "constructed around the ideas presented here."

What Bailey says here makes sense to me, although I find it curious that no translation seems to follow that reading. However my UBS Greek-English dictionary translates kataluma as "room, guest room; inn." So Bailey’s reading is given preference in this dictionary.

The same method used in the first chapter is followed throughout the book. Beginning with the second section, the Scripture texts are included in the book. With the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer, this takes only a little space. When the texts are longer, their length means that the book is well over 400 pages.

Having the text in front of us is convenient and perhaps necessary to display the detailed textual study. But it does add pages. Also, the essence of each chapter is summarized at the end and in one case this runs to 15 points. I found myself skimming these summaries, but maybe if I were studying the text for a sermon I would take them more seriously.

Chapter 12, "The Inauguration of Jesus’ Ministry," is a study of Luke 4:16-31 that analyzes and interprets Jesus’ address at Nazareth. (I think this may be a lecture I heard at Tantur, east of Jerusalem, in 1990). Bailey observes that the text quoted by Jesus in Luke 4 does not quite match the text we find in Isaiah 61. He writes: "It is often assumed that Luke (or his source) did the editing. It is also possible to trace the editing to Jesus" (149). This suggests that Bailey, like Yoder Neufeld, follows the second naiveté. He is aware of scholarly doubts and assumptions but not bound to them.

For evidence that Jesus may have edited the text, Bailey observes that "Jesus lived near the beginning of the rabbinic period of Jewish history." Rabbinic rules for the reading of Scripture showed that it was required to read the Torah as written, but in the prophets one was allowed to skip some verses. So Bailey suggests that Jesus was following accepted practice by doing some editing of the text (155-156).

As for why Jesus’ sermon so incensed the locals, Bailey proposes that the people at Nazareth were "settlers." "Galilee had become ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’ (Isa. 9:1; Matt. 4:15). In the second century Maccabean nationalism sought to ‘create facts on the ground.’ The plan of action was to move Jewish settlers on to the land in Galilee" (152). Bailey asks how such a group would view Isaiah 61. Certainly not as Jesus interpreted it.

Reading Bailey on Luke 4 helps us to feel the conflicts Jesus faced and why he was crucified. Separated by years and a wide cultural gap, we are in danger of failing to see the urgency of the situation and the message. Bailey offers to bring these front and center.

Recovering Jesus is a carefully organized presentation, one to read and think about. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes is more wide ranging and occasionally a little sloppy, as if the professor suddenly remembered an anecdote or a quotation and slipped it in. It is a book to keep handy and pull down when we find ourselves at work on any of the texts included in the book. The more we can know about Jesus and the context where he lived, the better we are able to say whether we really mean to try to follow him.

—Daniel Hertzler, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, first heard Bailey lecture in 1990 at Tantur, an ecumenical study center between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. He remembers Bailey as both well informed and eager to inform his audience. He talked like a machine gun.