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Otherwise known as my hermeneutical approach

One of my all-time favorite snapshots was taken a few hours after my son’s birth. I am sitting on a hospital sofa, the lines of exhaustion clearly visible on my face, as I smile down at this swaddled bundle held in my hands. These are first-time father’s hands: awkward, anxious, yet deeply attuned. This little one in his knit cap is clearly a wonder to me. My son, Sam, holds his eyes wide open in fierce attentiveness. His brow is furrowed, as if deep in thought. Clearly, I am a marvel to him as well.

In the Gospels of the New Testament, we find snapshots of the teachings of Jesus. As I re-live my first moments with my son in some small way by looking at that favorite picture, we re-consider the kingdom of God each time we encounter an image or story from the Bible. In academic disciplines, this is called the hermeneutical approach, meaning one’s method of interpretation. We study an ancient text in order to learn as much detail as possible about this snapshot and, in turn, about ourselves as interpreters. We allow our reading to speak to our hearts and minds. We offer an interpretation, not only about what we see, but also what we think; not only about what we read, but also what we feel.

This combination of head and heart knowledge is goal of this book; so before we begin, I’d like to briefly explain the theories of interpretation behind Parables of Parenthood.

What is a parable?

As evident in the title, the following chapters consider specific snapshots of scripture called parables. A “parable” is a compound word made up of a Greek preposition (para) that means “beside” and a Greek verb (bole) that means “to throw.”1 Literally the term refers to something that is thrown beside or alongside something else. This basic insight is helpful because it implies an intentional comparison between two or more objects, people, or realities. But I don’t believe Jesus intended to toss things together haphazardly. So then, we must elaborate upon our basic definition by asking, what does a parable do? In other words, how does it affect the reader or listener?

I believe a parable is like a snapshot with a story. The best storytellers encourage their listeners to make connections and allusions, thereby allowing different people to make a version of someone else’s experience a part of their own. The genius of Jesus was the ability to communicate the universe-altering concept of God breaking into this world in such a way that allows us to picture ourselves as a part of the Good News of the kingdom of heaven. In my opinion, this is “what” a parable does; more specifically, a parable invites the opportunity to reflect deeply upon a specific aspect of one’s life alongside other experiences, even in comparison with customs or situations in the distant past.

As Brian Blount noted in the foreword, I love to tell the Jesus story and believe that his parables offer such an amazing invitation. But the distance in time and space between us and first-century Palestine prompts other questions of interpretation. We, too, want to avoid throwing our experience haphazardly alongside the biblical text. Therefore we need to use trusted tools and methods of scholarship.

What is redaction criticism?

A hundred years or so ago, scholars thought the New Testament came into existence more or less like this: Jesus walked around, preaching and teaching in Aramaic; he died without writing anything down; for years, stories about what he did and said were circulated by word of mouth; eventually people realized they needed to record this information because the eyewitnesses to the events were almost all dead. Enter Mark, Matthew, and Luke onto the stage of history. We know little about their lives except their holy vocation. Collectively, they are responsible for the first three books of the New Testament which bear their names.

My hermeneutical approach or method of interpretation begins with this brief summary. The working assumption is that each parable first came from the historical person known as Jesus and then existed for years exclusively in the mouths and memories of people who re-told his words. However, previous theories concerning the creation of the Gospels did not paint a very flattering picture of Mark, Matthew, or Luke. They were considered to be recorders or scribes, merely copying oral tradition or other written accounts that were circulating in their time.

But then, scholars began to question this premise. What if Mark, Matthew, and Luke were smarter than we had originally thought? What if they were skilled theologians? What if they put some thought into the way they arranged and ordered the received traditions about Jesus? And what if the stories and teachings they placed before and after each parable had something to do with their own experience? These questions sparked the creation of a method of interpretation known as redaction criticism.

Redaction criticism is most easily understood by getting inside the head of an editor at a modern newspaper. After receiving articles or reports from a variety of sources, she will double-check the grammar and correct any mistakes. Perhaps a sentence or two could be re-worded. She may also change a few phrases to strengthen or challenge other sections of the same newspaper. This last example suggests that, in addition to minute details, editors consider the larger scope of the publication because the sequence of individual stories affects the reader’s interpretation of the whole newspaper. Certain reports make the front page and others are buried on the last page with the advertisements. Other articles are grouped together around a similar theme. Redaction criticism, then, involves zooming in on particular word choices in a specific parable and then panning back out to consider the overall narrative framework of the Gospel.

This analogy to a newspaper editor also implies that we need to consider the sources that the editors of the Gospels had at their disposal.

What is the Marcan Priority?

The majority of today’s scholars cite a theory known as the Marcan Priority. This obtuse phrase refers to the simple idea that the Gospel of Mark was written before the other Gospels. The inference, then, is that Matthew and Luke used Mark’s version as a reference while compiling their Gospels. While this can’t be definitively proven without a time machine, I’ll cite the rationale that I find to be most convincing: humans being human, our stories tend to grow over time. Over the course of conversation about a particular event, it is inevitable that details are added and arguments are elaborated. You would also expect the story to become increasingly polished the more often it had been told.

This relates specifically to redaction criticism because, first of all, Mark is the shortest Gospel. Secondly, Matthew and Luke follow the basic outline of Mark’s sequence of material, meaning they built upon his narrative plot.2 As we’ll discover, they also refined the language of certain parables. The other two Gospels are more elegant and clear, which suggests they were editing Mark’s Greek. If you imagine Mark as a mannequin, Matthew and Luke have accessorized the original arrangement.

With that metaphor in mind, let’s raise a related point about another source.

What is the Q source?

There are parables shared by Matthew and Luke which are entirely absent from Mark. This provides a kind of reverse argument for the Marcan Priority. It is highly unlikely that, if Mark knew about a poignant teaching such as the Parable of the Lost Sheep, he would have deleted it from his Gospel. The logical conclusion, then, is that Matthew and Luke shared yet another source in common that was likewise unavailable to Mark.

This concept is known as the Q Source, referring to a theoretical document identified by an abbreviation of the German word, quelle, which literally means “source.” To be clear, no archeologist has ever discovered such a manuscript.3 Unlike the Gospel of Mark, the existence of this document is just a theory; yet it persuasively explains how the same material, specifically numerous sayings attributed to Jesus, can be found almost word-for-word in both Matthew and Luke.

Scholars can get into heated debates about the specific content hypothesized to be found in the Q source. For my purposes, it is enough to agree with Bart Ehrman that the Q source consists of material shared by Matthew and Luke that is not in Mark.4 To return to my metaphor, Q represents a separate clothing bin from which Matthew and Luke could rummage from and find similar items to accessorize their Marcan mannequins.

If these theories are clear, I will now explain the specifics of my head and heart approach to interpretation.

The overall structure of this book and each chapter

Here is how the method of redaction criticism is used in Parables of Parenthood. The book is arranged according to the chronological order of parables in Mark with additional parables following Matthew’s sequence. Lessons and insights thereby build upon each other, which I believe was the intention of the Gospel editors.

Each chapter concentrates on one parable, but compares versions in different Gospels. After a brief introduction, I have included my own translations of the Greek texts. My basic intention is to provide a convenient means to study them side-by-side. But I would also assert that every translation is itself an act of interpretation. Many English versions of the Bible smooth out the ancient languages for modern ears; I have chosen to translate the original Greek quite literally. Like a child’s paint-by-numbers book, a lack of sophistication can result in greater clarity. While some of the phrases in my translations are admittedly awkward, my goal is to allow the reader to observe the Gospels as easily as distinguishing between colors.

Spring-boarding from these translations, we begin with close attention to the exact words used in Mark’s parable and where it falls in relation to the larger narrative of that Gospel because this text was recorded first. Next, we study the versions of Matthew and Luke through comparison and contrast, noticing particular details that were either maintained or changed by these editors. Then, we once again expand our study in reference to the surrounding material so that we gain an appreciation of the parable functioning in the larger scope of these narratives as well. If the parable is not found in Mark, then we assume it was part of the Q source and notice the similarities and variances between Matthew and Luke. We try and think like editors through the process of zooming in on the parable and panning out to the rest of the Gospel.

Underlying this method of interpretation is my belief that the editors of the Gospels were brilliant theologians. They were more like composers, masterfully directing the individual parts of an orchestra (sources of information about Jesus) to achieve the best overall sound (theology about the kingdom of heaven). In the following chapters, we will discover how the music delights, soothes, and challenges our opinions and worldviews.

Finally, I would re-emphasize my earlier point about a parable as a snapshot with a story. After careful attention to the parable itself, I hope to model one way of reading the Bible through the experiential lens of modern life. Each chapter concludes with illustrations of certain insights drawn from the biblical text through my experience as a parent. These “Alongside My Son” sections are not arranged according to the chronological order of Sam’s life, but spring from my reflections on the Bible. My friend, Tom, helpfully suggested coining a new term for this approach–the “hermeneutics of parenthood.” I agree that it has a nice ring! More importantly, he suggests that I am reading the text and my life simultaneously, a mixture of “in print” and “in person.” I think observing this dynamic will be clearer than talking about it, so I’d like to end the introduction on this note:

On October 25th, 2012 at 12:52 pm in southwestern Virginia, a newborn’s high-pitched wail pierced the tension of a hospital room with a triumphant crescendo. Our midwife, Mattie, placed a wet, gooey, and healthy baby on my wife’s chest. Samuel Greene Taylor-Troutman was here.

“Sam,” I gasped from the side of the hospital bed, tears of joy fresh on my flushed cheeks, “I’m your dad! I’m your dad! Sam, I’m your dad!”

Then, he stopped crying and looked directly at me.

I met his gaze with a look of love and whispered to my wife, “Here we go.”

1. Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon, 759–760

2. This theory is well-evinced in modern scholarship. For an accessible summary, see Ehrman, The New Testament, 83–90 (especially 85–86).

3. This lack of direct evidence, however, has not prevented some scholars from building their entire careers on this principle, so I feel quite justified in proceeding with this little book!

4. Ehrman, The New Testament, 86–89