Parables of Reversaln (and some other stuff)

AMCrenshaw said:

Of course my favorite is The Parable of the Talents. Crossan developed this idea that parables of reversal are more concerned with the end of history than any other kind of parable. What makes parables of reversal more difficult to analyze -- including, Crossan asserts, determining how much tradition has affected the meaning -- is that the tone and message are fundamentally ironic.

Like much of Jesus' supposedly original / essential sayings, there tends to be a focus on the prodigal child, the one who leaves and then returns to the garden, palace, or hands of God. What I find interesting about this parable is how the Master, often interpreted to be God, is depicted in a realy frightening way.

At least, so the wicked servant claims, and the master agrees. I have argued about this before, and so what I'm about to say isn't the matter of discussion. But I have, for quite a while now, read into this parable that the Master isn't God at all, but Caesar. Which marks two reversals: first, that of the third (and wicked) servant's decision to bury the money; second, that of the ambiguous "master".

1) What other types of parables are there? Provide examples.
2) Why do parables work so well at communicating meaning, assuming they do?

3) What distinguishes parable from allegory?
4) Maybe we can discuss another parable of reversal, from any number of perspectives.

This should go without saying, but I will say it anyhow: We're not talking about the validity of beliefs here. OK?



AMC

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This parable baffles me. I will point out that it differs from allegory precisely because of this baffling re-orientation of meaning. Allegories fix meaning while allowing imagery a bit of multiplication...but the meaning remains fixed: Patience is always Patience and Fortitude is always Fortitude.

Here are some possible interpretations:

1) the Master is God as the God of ritual purity...he gives his divine purity to some subset of people. Two of them go out into the world and multiply this goodness (so far so allegorically good) and he rewards them. One hides this...Ie keeps the goodness/purity of God pure and separate. Rather shockingly, God finds this a bit silly.
2) the Master is more of a Calvinist God and the talents are signs of election
3) the Master is more of a God of Angelic Hosts and the servants are Angels or Angelic people (Priests of the Temple or Extreme Pharisees like Jesus H. Christ or John the Baptist or Paul). The Extremists take their angelic power out into the world. The priests keep it in the Temple and are found foolish by God.

But, I think some signs are missing from this parable. Either we don't have the cues for the right interpretive frame or part of the story or its elucidation are missing from outr text.

AMCrenshaw said:

What I find interesting about this parable is how the Master, often interpreted to be God, is depicted in a realy frightening way.


AMC

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There is also the problem of blasting the fig tree...not a parable exactly, but subject to more allegory for that reason. (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_fig_tree).

For some reason people assume the blasted tree is "the state of the Jewish Church"...hmm the Jewish Church. Not the Second Temple? Nope. You guessed it: "the Jewish Church." Which oddly enough God blasts for not having figs.

Even more oddly there is a Bountiful Tree Parable in the Qumran texts http://www.gnosis.org/library/partre.htm)

The Parable of the Bountiful Tree

Higgins said:

There is also the problem of blasting the fig tree...not a parable exactly, but subject to more allegory for that reason. (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_fig_tree).

For some reason people assume the blasted tree is "the state of the Jewish Church"...hmm the Jewish Church. Not the Second Temple? Nope. You guessed it: "the Jewish Church." Which oddly enough God blasts for not having figs.

Even more oddly there is a Bountiful Tree Parable in the Qumran texts http://www.gnosis.org/library/partre.htm)

The Parable of the Bountiful Tree

4Q302a ​

F.1 Col.2

Please consider this, you who are wise: If a man has a fine tree, which grows high, all the way to heaven (...) (...) of the soil, and it produces succulent fruit every year with the autumn rains and the spring rains, (...) and in thirst, will he not (...) and guard it (...) to multiply the boughs (?) of (...) from its shoot, to increase (...) and its mass of branches (...)

​

F.2 Col.1

(...) your God (...) your hearts (...) (...) with a willing spirit. (...) Shall God establish (...) from your hand? When you rebel, (...) your intentions, will He not confront you, reprove you and reply to your complaint? (...) As for God, His dwelling is in heaven, and his kingdom embraces the lands; in the seas (...) in them, and (...)
​

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If JHChrist is playing on this parable (and why wouldn't he?)...He blasts the tree that is following merely earthly seasons. The Tree that just is a tree and the servent who is merely pure are not getting the cosmic message. While the function of the tree in the "bountiful tree" is the reverse: it shows that the man who tends the fruitful tree is like God attending to the ins and outs of History, rather like the function of Fortuna or the Turnings of the Mayan calendrical cosmos. This seems a bit Calvinist to me, but that's probably all my fault.

What the heck is a Jewish church?

semilargeintestine said:

What the heck is a Jewish church?

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Exactly.

AMCrenshaw said:

Fig Tree: Mark 11:12-14 (New International Version)


Curious where you get history out of this, actually.


AMC

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It's from the other things in cave 4. Cave 4 has historical allegories such as the Animal Apocalypse from 1 Enoch, which suggests that for some reason or other Cave 4 represents a stage where such historical speculation was being taken out of circulation or a filing system wherein that cave was the place for historical speculation. The question that a lot of expicitly allegorical Qumran texts address is: how can a relatively small, pure and righteous bunch win in a battle for control of the world versus some set of larger groups of people? The usual answer being some variation on "God will help" (via angels or other cosmic firepower).

AMCrenshaw said:

which would be?

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The cosmic message is:

1) Jesus originally (like any other extreme Pharisee):
"Anyone -- absolutely anyone -- can be as holy/pure as an angel. ie each person is potentially so close to Divine levels of holiness as to be virtually the personal child of God."
2) Jesus as read by the Gospels 50-100 years later: "The Temple is going to be destroyed. Better take this highly modified extreme pharisee cult focused on Jesus but including J the Baptist instead. And see, we're right: the Temple was destroyed."

So some of the parables probably were pretty different when Jesus first said them, but some (like the blasted fig tree) would not make sense for the original Jesus but would make sense for the Gospel setting after the destruction of the Temple.

Higgins said:

It's from the other things in cave 4. Cave 4 has historical allegories such as the Animal Apocalypse from 1 Enoch, which suggests that for some reason or other Cave 4 represents a stage where such historical speculation was being taken out of circulation or a filing system wherein that cave was the place for historical speculation. The question that a lot of expicitly allegorical Qumran texts address is: how can a relatively small, pure and righteous bunch win in a battle for control of the world versus some set of larger groups of people? The usual answer being some variation on "God will help" (via angels or other cosmic firepower).

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The Essenes viewed themselves as the righteous bunch among the Jews. Their practices are most likely the route of early Xtian practices. They practiced communal living, baptism, etc. They even required new people to give up their money before moving in. They hate copies of the Tanakh, but they also authored their own apocryphal books, such as Enoch. The authorship is starkly different from the Tanakh, and apparently is close to the style of their other documents. They also re-wrote Deuteronomy to fit their own beliefs.

Until the Torah scroll found from King Solomon's reign, the Leviticus and Isaiah scrolls found with the Dead Sea Scrolls were thought to be the oldest, dating from 2nd and 1st century BCE. The Solomon scroll is from around 600 BCE, and it is identical to the Torah's we have today in content and in script. Interesting, as that is only around 672 years after Moses finished writing the Torah and died. I have no real point to this except that I think it's cool that we can track our Scripture back over 2,600 years.

Also, I doubt Jebus was a Pharisee. I'm almost positive he rejected the Talmud as nothing but Rabbinical nonsense, c''v. I think he was a Saduccee. Something that frustrates me about him is that people praise his teachings as radically different than what Jews at the time were teaching; however, that is almost entirely false. Most of his "love and brotherhood" teachings had already been a part of Jewish law for a thousand years.

Nice job with the bolding.

Just to respond, and then I'll let the thread get back on track:

I did a little research, and it seems that J disliked both the Pharisees and the Saduccees. He seems to be little more than an apikores, as he flagrantly transgressed both Oral and Written Law. I'm not convinced that there was a singular historical J, but there were early Xtians who kept the Torah and viewed him as the Jewish (human) Messiah, so that lends a little more credibility to his existence; however, it paints a pretty different picture as to what he most likely actually said/did than the NT would have someone believe.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

semilargeintestine said:

The Essenes viewed themselves as the righteous bunch among the Jews. Their practices are most likely the route of early Xtian practices.

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After reading Norman Golb, I think it is reasonable to view the Qumran caves as a genizah run by the Temple. The Copper Scroll pretty much clinches that.

http://humanities.uchicago.edu/depts/nelc/facultypages/golb/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Scroll

So the Qumran texts are probably a selection of texts that were tainted for one reason or another (worn, written on papyrus, theologically questionable etc.) that the Temple authorities put away. The copper scroll is a list of Temple Treasures hidden at the time of the revolt in 68-70 AD.

semilargeintestine said:

Also, I doubt Jebus was a Pharisee. I'm almost positive he rejected the Talmud as nothing but Rabbinical nonsense, c''v.

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It seems that Jesus (or at least the earliest initiator of the Jesus traditions) probably was a Pharisee of a rather extreme sort. In the time of the Temple there was strictly speaking no Rabbinical Judaism yet and in fact Rabbinical Judaism and Christianity originated at about the same time from the Pharisees and were solidified as institutions by the problems of living after the fall of the Temple. Neither the proto-christian extreme Pharisees nor the proto-Rabbinic less extreme Pharisees seem to have joined in the final cataclysms of the Revolt of 68-70 and both the proto-Christian Pharisees and the more standard Pharisees were crucified by the Oligarchic Authorities of Jerusalem from time to time...at least the ordinary Pharisees were according to Josephus and the extreme varieties according to the Jesus traditions.

I don't think I would use the copper scroll as proof for anything. It's written in a style different from everything else found in the Dead Sea scrolls, and its contents have been shown to be pretty much worthless and inaccurate. As your link says, it makes no mention of the Ark, the Menorah, or any of the other important Temple items. It also fails to mention that the contents of the Temple were still in it when the Romans entered.

It's possible that it was written by Jews from Jerusalem though. If that is the case, it is still by a sectarian group of Jews. The Pharisees would NOT have rewritten Deuteronomy. Also, the tefillin they found there is not written in accordance with Oral Law, which the Pharisees protected and held as binding. In addition, there are copies of scrolls there that had been replicated with the name of G-d written in a paleo-Hebrew script rather than the standard, kosher script of the rest of the Tanakh. At that point in time, the script required for a Torah scroll to be Kosher was already in place for 400 years. The evidence just doesn't support a Pharisaic origin.

I also doubt it comes from the Temple authorities, who were mostly Saduccees. The other texts are extremely critical of them, and I'm not sure why they would write scolding comments about themselves. Like I said before, the copper scroll is mostly thought to describe a treasure that either never existed or is something other than the Temple items. If it IS about the treasure, it is written by the religious zealots famous for the incident at Masada, where they all killed themselves rather than allow the Romans to capture them alive. These people were way off the derech, as Jewish law forbids committing Suicide. Whoever these people were, they weren't the mainstream Jews that led to the Orthodox Judaism of today.

Higgins said:

It seems that Jesus (or at least the earliest initiator of the Jesus traditions) probably was a Pharisee of a rather extreme sort. In the time of the Temple there was strictly speaking no Rabbinical Judaism yet and in fact Rabbinical Judaism and Christianity originated at about the same time from the Pharisees and were solidified as institutions by the problems of living after the fall of the Temple. Neither the proto-christian extreme Pharisees nor the proto-Rabbinic less extreme Pharisees seem to have joined in the final cataclysms of the Revolt of 68-70 and both the proto-Christian Pharisees and the more standard Pharisees were crucified by the Oligarchic Authorities of Jerusalem from time to time...at least the ordinary Pharisees were according to Josephus and the extreme varieties according to the Jesus traditions.

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You're ignoring the fact that J regularly transgressed both the Talmud and the Written Torah. The Pharisees were the precursor for rabbinical Judaism. It makes little sense to claim him to be a Pharisee and then describe his exploits in both condemning them and transgressing everything they hold sacred.

He may have started out as a Pharisee, but he went way off the derech, and I would call him barely a Jew.

semilargeintestine said:

I don't think I would use the copper scroll as proof for anything.

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The simplest answer to all of this otherwise confusing stuff is that the Temple authorities removed heterodox texts from circulation. They couldn't destroy them and they put them away carefully in the genizah at Qumran.
The copper scroll shows the Temple authorities at work before the destruction of the Temple. Obviously they couldn't type up the list of treasures and hide them once Jerusalem was besieged.

So Qumran gives a snapshot of what texts the Temple took out of circulation, ie the texts don't represent any sect. And the Copper scroll shows that Qumran was a place the Temple considered to be a secure storage area. The Copper Scroll was probably accurate when it was written and Golb points out that some items where found where the scroll said they were in the past. And of course there was another copy of the scroll so it possessors could have used that copy to get the treasures.

semilargeintestine said:

He may have started out as a Pharisee, but he went way off the derech, and I would call him barely a Jew.

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I'm sure you are right in that Jesus (Jesus 1A, say) represented an extreme kind of Pharisee. In modern terms this makes him barely a Jew, but that's not surprising since the world of 2100 years ago is barely recognizable in many ways. It would be just as correct to point out that Jesus 1A was not even remotely Christian in the modern sense or even in the Gospel sense of 50-100 years later.

Returning to the story of the blasted fig tree, it is very telling that at that point the narrative notes that Jesus is merely overheard blasting the tree. What does just overhearing something mean when you are recounting a tradition that is only known from the sayings of the Master? It means it is not an authentic saying within the tradition, just something "overheard" retrospectively...since in the 1A Jesus tradition, the Temple is still there and in the Gospel version of Jesus (Jesus 3C say) the Temple is gone and Jesus can be overheard blasting trees so that the later meaning can be imposed on the earlier tradition.

AMCrenshaw said:

Also, in my opinion, Jesus' switch from a apocalyptic vision to an immanent one came with the end of John the Baptist (also an Essene?).

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I think probably not. Paul doesn't mention John at all in his letters (around 50 AD). He turns up in Acts (about 40 years later) with some connection with Paul, but not in the letters at all.

John the Baptist has all the appearances of a chronological peg. The Jesus 1A traditions were probably floating as far as chronology was concerned, ie, Jesus 1A existed back sometime on or before 1 AD and probably the death of 1A was about the time of the Chronologically retrospective birth of 2B.

So after the fall of the Temple, the Chronology of 1A/2B becomes a problem. The Gospel writers know he existed back there some time and that he was somewhat like John the Baptist in many ways, though I doubt "Essene" really comes close to how extreme 1A was. John was chronologically well-defined so why not make him yet another prefiguration of Jesus and fix the floating chronology at the same time? So in the Gospel version you get John the Baptist to fix the time which is otherwise up in the air.

Was 1A apocalyptic "originally"?...I think not. It looks like the core of his teaching was fantastically simple and powerful: anyone can achieve virtually divine levels of ritual purity. It's a very nice metaphysical twist because ritual purity is not apocalyptic or immanent and it has an inherent social side that is just as puzzling as it is liberating. Of course its not exactly a Christian or Jewish idea -- for one thing neither Christianity nor Judaism has a Temple any more so we don't really know what extreme ritual purity is supposed to be like or what it is supposed to do. The Temple is of course the other place where extreme ritual purity was possible when 1A was teaching.

AMCrenshaw said:

This is an interesting thought I think we can tie into the original topic. I have heard before these were transgressed, but in the sense they were extended. Is this true, from your point of view? I have read quite a number of texts that assert Jesus wasn't against the beliefs of the Pharisees so much as their practice during a given time (of course the picture of them in the Bible makes them out to be legalistic) "be ware of those wearing robes for all to see". Rather to me it seems like the spiritual purity Jesus was calling for ("you cannot serve two masters" he said, referring in a literal sense to money) was Pharisaical.


Also, in my opinion, Jesus' switch from a apocalyptic vision to an immanent one came with the end of John the Baptist (also an Essene?).


AMC

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I think it's possible that he was decrying the corruption of many (though certainly not all), both Sadducee and Pharisee. However, that in no way makes it okay to transgress commandments and does not justify his constant making a mockery of the Torah.

As far as extending it, that is not allowed:

Deut. 13:1-4 said:

א. אֵת כָּל הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם אֹתוֹ תִשְׁמְרוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת לֹא תֹסֵף עָלָיו וְלֹא תִגְרַע מִמֶּנּוּ:
​

1. Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it.

ב. כִּי יָקוּם בְּקִרְבְּךָ נָבִיא אוֹ חֹלֵם חֲלוֹם וְנָתַן אֵלֶיךָ אוֹת אוֹ מוֹפֵת:
​

2. If there will arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he gives you a sign or a wonder,

ג. וּבָא הָאוֹת וְהַמּוֹפֵת אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר אֵלֶיךָ לֵאמֹר נֵלְכָה אַחֲרֵי אֱ־לֹהִים אֲחֵרִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא יְדַעְתָּם וְנָעָבְדֵם:

3. and the sign or the wonder of which he spoke to you happens, [and he] says, "Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us worship them,"

ד. לֹא תִשְׁמַע אֶל דִּבְרֵי הַנָּבִיא הַהוּא אוֹ אֶל חוֹלֵם הַחֲלוֹם הַהוּא כִּי מְנַסֶּה יְ־הֹוָ־ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם אֶתְכֶם לָדַעַת הֲיִשְׁכֶם אֹהֲבִים אֶת יְ־הֹוָ־ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם בְּכָל לְבַבְכֶם וּבְכָל נַפְשְׁכֶם:

4. you shall not heed the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream; for the Lord, your God, is testing you, to know whether you really love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul.​

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Higgins said:

The simplest answer to all of this otherwise confusing stuff is that the Temple authorities removed heterodox texts from circulation. They couldn't destroy them and they put them away carefully in the genizah at Qumran.
The copper scroll shows the Temple authorities at work before the destruction of the Temple. Obviously they couldn't type up the list of treasures and hide them once Jerusalem was besieged.

So Qumran gives a snapshot of what texts the Temple took out of circulation, ie the texts don't represent any sect. And the Copper scroll shows that Qumran was a place the Temple considered to be a secure storage area. The Copper Scroll was probably accurate when it was written and Golb points out that some items where found where the scroll said they were in the past. And of course there was another copy of the scroll so it possessors could have used that copy to get the treasures.

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That's highly unlikely, and Gob's theory is not widely accepted.

Higgins said:

I'm sure you are right in that Jesus (Jesus 1A, say) represented an extreme kind of Pharisee. In modern terms this makes him barely a Jew, but that's not surprising since the world of 2100 years ago is barely recognizable in many ways. It would be just as correct to point out that Jesus 1A was not even remotely Christian in the modern sense or even in the Gospel sense of 50-100 years later.

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This is correct to an extent. Pharisaic Judaism was the precursor to Rabbinical Judaism, and the practices and faith are the same. He would have been considered a heretic just as much then as he would be today by Orthodox Judaism.

Higgins said:

I think probably not. Paul doesn't mention John at all in his letters (around 50 AD). He turns up in Acts (about 40 years later) with some connection with Paul, but not in the letters at all.

John the Baptist has all the appearances of a chronological peg. The Jesus 1A traditions were probably floating as far as chronology was concerned, ie, Jesus 1A existed back sometime on or before 1 AD and probably the death of 1A was about the time of the Chronologically retrospective birth of 2B.

So after the fall of the Temple, the Chronology of 1A/2B becomes a problem. The Gospel writers know he existed back there some time and that he was somewhat like John the Baptist in many ways, though I doubt "Essene" really comes close to how extreme 1A was. John was chronologically well-defined so why not make him yet another prefiguration of Jesus and fix the floating chronology at the same time? So in the Gospel version you get John the Baptist to fix the time which is otherwise up in the air.

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That is a logical argument, and could be accurate.

Was 1A apocalyptic "originally"?...I think not. It looks like the core of his teaching was fantastically simple and powerful: anyone can achieve virtually divine levels of ritual purity. It's a very nice metaphysical twist because ritual purity is not apocalyptic or immanent and it has an inherent social side that is just as puzzling as it is liberating. Of course its not exactly a Christian or Jewish idea -- for one thing neither Christianity nor Judaism has a Temple any more so we don't really know what extreme ritual purity is supposed to be like or what it is supposed to do. The Temple is of course the other place where extreme ritual purity was possible when 1A was teaching.

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Actually, we do--at least in Judaism anyway. Ritual purity is one's fitness to perform certain acts. There are certain things one can and cannot do while ritually impure, and there are different methods of becoming ritually pure depending on what caused the defilement. The Torah makes it exceedingly clear, and it is a basic part of everyday Jewish life. I was ritually impure a few times today, and I did what I needed to do to purify myself so that I could do certain things (pray, say blessings, eat).

Most of J's teachings were not original at all. Only his push for a break from Torah observance was really original (and heretical as far as Judaism is concerned).

semilargeintestine said:

I

Actually, we do--at least in Judaism anyway. Ritual purity is one's fitness to perform certain acts. There are certain things one can and cannot do while ritually impure, and there are different methods of becoming ritually pure depending on what caused the defilement. The Torah makes it exceedingly clear, and it is a basic part of everyday Jewish life. I was ritually impure a few times today, and I did what I needed to do to purify myself so that I could do certain things (pray, say blessings, eat).

Most of J's teachings were not original at all. Only his push for a break from Torah observance was really original (and heretical as far as Judaism is concerned).

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I doubt that Jesus 1A would have been pushing for any break with Torah observance since he was a Pharisee (just a pretty extreme one). Paul was also against breaking with Torah I think, though on this point I'm with unpopular people (as with Golb's view of what the Qumran texts are). When Jesus and company (eg Paul) are represented violating Torah (as in Acts), then we know a later reinterpretation is being introduced.

So yes, there's nothing particularly original about Jesus 1A, he just went to rather more extreme expectations about what somebody outside the Temple could do in terms of ritual purity.

I just wanted to say that I'm finding this very interesting. Wish I could contribute something, but I don't know anything relevant. And parables to me are a hit-and-miss management consulting technique -- when they hit, people learn something new and remember it. When they miss people learn the wrong thing and it entrenches like some mutant meme. I'm with Bertrand Russell on the fig-tree -- yelling at a tree out of season has Canutelike signs of unwisdom and unvirtue. Other than as an historical curio I see no good reason to ponder it.