Category Archives: Bible

Discussion of historical and textual issues related to the Hebrew and Greek bibles, and their commentators

The dishonest manager

I would love to hear/read your comments on the story and the interpretation I propose here.

This parable is only found in Luke 16.1–9. See the literature cited in Green or Fitzmyer. The story assumes an audience familiar with property management and debt system of the time. A proper understanding of the parable, therefore, has to begin with solid knowledge of the economic and legal background. Some of the questions to be asked are: is the manager a slave? what is the source of his power to enact change in the contracts, granted the willingness of the farmers (tenants)? Second, how is one to explain the fifty percent rebate in the case of olive oil, and twenty percent in the case of grain? Higher class debt in one case, or better calculation? Or irony on the part of the story teller, regarding the real value of olive oil and its marketability? Further, is the absolute quantity about twenty years worth of the stuff? An insurance scheme of sorts then? What can one say about the level of literacy of the tenants? Finally, why does the landowner congratulate his manager for acting shrewdly, when it appears his own interests have been seriously hurt?

The system of debt which was in existence drew the maximum labor possible from tenants or rather sharecroppers and their families (meaning wives and children). Interest wouldn’t be mentioned, but can be assumed to be part of the lump sum that is owed to the master. The manager was authorized to make binding contracts for his master. He was given signs of authority for so doing. Contra certain authors (Fitzmyer more recently, for instance), the steward couldn’t have been pocketing the interest and then expect to see feelings of obligation on the part of the sharecroppers when he returned the unjustly acquired interest. His job is well described in the parable of the Talents: to make money for his master, regardless of the appropriateness of the means, and perhaps make some for himself in the process.

Note on the context: the preceding stories of God’s mercy for sinners imply that one is to share possessions with the needy.

Commentary

16.1 πρὸς τοὺς μαθητάς (to the disciples): Why is Jesus represented as speaking to his disciples at this point? The answer depends on the interpretation given to the story. For the story of the prodigal son, just before, we only have an εἰπεν δέ (but he said)….

πλοὺσιος: the story is concerned with a rich man, i.e., someone controlling lands scattered through the area, or even beyond the seas, as is obvious from the papyrological and inscriptional record for the whole Hellenistic period, and already before. The third gospel presents rich people very negatively. Does that mean that this particular story cannot be allegorized as usual, that is, with the landowner as a figure of the divinity? “A certain man:” why not a king? Because this story is not concerned with inheritance, but with another aspect of the particular relationship between master, manager, and tenants. A rich man was not necessarily liked and belonged to another world, even though he shared in the culture and religion. The landowner’s far-flung properties would need a manager (οἰκονόμος, who was not necessarily a slave). Note that when landlords visited their holdings, which they did often enough, accounts would certainly be scrutinized at that point. Landlords would make regular visits to their holdings, and checked accounts as well as the health of their investments (ex. given in Josephus, in The Jewish War, of Greek landowners going from Tiberias to see their properties East of the Jordan river).

διεβλήθη αὐτῷ: It was rumored to him…. What means of pressure did the rich man have, in the listeners’ opinion? Could he give a participation in the benefits? If the manager was a slave, the owner could remove everything from him and punish him severely. Notice the role of rumor in controlling people’s affairs. Everything in this society could be assumed to be a public affair. Innuendos were sufficient, in the absence of a truly neutral law courts, as appearance of authority and trustworthiness is everything.

διασκορπίζων, that is to say, “dissipating, spreading (thin) ….” By doing what? What could the manager do that would threaten the master’s interests? He could misuse his borrowed authority in many ways. He could certainly add to rental contracts, or traffic in debt contracts. He could take advantage of measurements at harvest times to favor his master, but taking his own “cut” at the same time. He could use tools and animals to his own benefit, for instance by renting them out to others for money or advantages to himself. The position of power of the manager had as its main reason profit (no neutral position in the ancient world). The position was by nature an invitation to take advantage of the position, at all levels of the system of delegation of authority. For comparison, think of the client-kings and the equestrian or senatorial province governors, who needed to exploit their provinces systematically, the more so because the tenures were so short sometimes.

τὰ ὑπάρχοντα αὐτοῦ = everything was owned by this master, presumably. What did the landowner own, exactly? in a traditional sharecropping system, not only the land, but also the main tools of agriculture and animals, as well as the seed stock. But here, we don’t have a customary contract (i.e. often unwritten, everything according to the customs of the region, as the Mishna and Talmud say). There are written documents involving large quantities of goods which the tenants—or their representatives, i.e. tenancy contractors—must sign themselves.

16.2 φωνήσας: “having called him.” The landowner believes the accusation but doesn’t ask him to bring his ledger with him when he calls him. Why not? Is it because it would obviously alert the manager’s suspicion and lead to more problems, or is it because the landowner of our story is a little slow, compared to his smart representative? It takes time to do the calling and for the manager to respond to it. The rich man’s house is not in a village nearby, but in one of the Hellenistic cities of the area: Tiberias, Diocaesarea (Sepphoris), Hippos, Ptolemais, or even Caesarea). A summons from Tiberias, say, to a village in Galilee, would take a day, and the manager would need another day to respond to it: two days total. He knows the landowner is coming very soon now, because this is a precarious moment for the landowner also, who fears more losses or some further stealing may happen in these few hours between the manager’s return and his own arrival. The manager, if he is to change anything, has to act quickly, within a few hours, perhaps one or two days at most. And he has to act in such a way that he doesn’t raise anyone’s suspicion.

16.3 Suspicion aroused by rumor was enough for ancient landowners to act. Even appearance of malfeasance was sufficient ground for them to get rid of managers. If they didn’t, what were others, such as tenants, to think of them, and how were they to behave themselves, if given an opportunity to take advantage of their landowners? ἀπόδος τὸν λόγον (hand over the account): there was an exact account, a ledger, of all matters concerning the οἰκονομία, i.e. feeding, taking care of things (house slaves?), making sure tenants or sharecroppers were watched but also supplied with the necessary tools or animals if needed (פרנסוות). Cf. the Roman writers on ancient agriculture and management, especially Columella (quoted in my previous post).

τί ποιήσω = What am I to do? There is no discussion, no self-pity, but the moment of truth has arrived for the manager, who is caught between two groups of people who are equally unsympathetic to his position: the landowner and family, the sharecroppers and families, who must have felt his authority also at numerous times, and perhaps even his contempt and harshness or cruelty. After all, their level of debt (or the degree of profit extraction) was in great part dependent on his knowledge of local conditions and what he recommended be done by the master.

The audience may have taken some pleasure in a story making an all too well known and contemptible character squirm a bit. His removal from his managerial position means that it will be impossible for him to get another one, at least in the same area, and it also means a loss of status (note the expression κύριός μου, my master, which leads one to suspect he is a slave). His review of the tasks he doesn’t see himself apt to do may will have drawn some ironical comments on the part of hard-working peasants. Σκάπτειν: to dig, i.e. to hoe and dig deeply around trees when composting, or after plowing in the fall and spring seasons. Ἐπαιτεῖν: to beg, or go begging, which means primarily being confronted with people who will remind him of his previous status.

In the depth of his despair, an illumination, as in the story of the lost son in chapter 15. The ἔγνων τί ποιήσω sounds like an “aha” or a eureka (16.4): I know what I’ll do. He has come upon a scheme to force these peasants to accept him into their houses (note: the Greek word carries the tone of habitations, or tents of Jacob). How could he hope to do that? He knows how to play the culture of honor and shame he mentions, and which was enforced in a myriad of ways. Custom demanded that favors be reciprocated in the future, at different times, but according to quite a precise (though unspoken) schedule.

But he is not in a position to give them anything of his, and neither is he in a position to ask them to return favors he might claim he had done to or for them in the past. Most likely, if he has been a scoundrel regarding his master’s possessions, he has been an even bigger scoundrel when it came to the village farmers’ interests. Some commentators think he is planning to return what he has stolen in the first place, i.e. in less than honest dealings such as contracts of debts and tenancy he rigged to his own advantage in the past (Fitzmyer for instance, or Derrett, who suggest that he has been keeping interest on the debt—there was a prohibition of interest, circumventable in several ways). But this idea surely wouldn’t work, since the farmers wouldn’t have any reason to return a favor to a person who stole from them in the first place. It has got to be something else.

He calls in his master’s debtors. By definition, all tenants, or at least sharecroppers, were in debt: this is part of the land management structure of ancient times. Contracts were written on papyrus or on parchment, and were of the “double-document” kind. The sheet on which the contract was written was rolled, the end of it folded back unto itself, and the scroll tied and sealed. A copy of the most important part of the contract was made on the back for everyone to see, without having to break the seal. The manager, at least from the farmers’ point of view, is still a representative of the master’s authority. The farmers, it must be assumed, know that the manager went to see the landowner, but they don’t know why (I presume). When they are asked to sign a correction to their documents that is massively to their advantage, they are likely to think that the master is being generous (given their difficulties, which were a permanent feature of their situation). Surely they cannot think that the manager is conniving to force the master to make a good turn, since this is antithetical to what managers’ job was, and furthermore the master would likely turn against them (and perhaps change tenants)? But the manager has his idea: not only is he hoping to ride the sentiment of great relief and recognition the peasants are going to have for their landowner. He may also be trying to get even with his master and punishing him, while preparing his way out by canceling the usury practiced by his master. Or must one suppose that he is forcing both landowner and tenants to start afresh after a most significant act of debt forgiveness, and hoping to survive on the good will of everyone (especially that of the tenants, if he is indeed fired, as the landowner told him privately?).

The first debtor owes 100 baths of oil (ca. 450 gallons, or 1,800 liters), and his debt is halved to 50 baths. That’s a significant abatement. Note on yields, for comparison: the yield of modern olive trees is about 4 tons per acre or 9 metric tons per hectare for a consistent year-to-year yield. Oil yield: 45 gallons per ton. So, our text is talking about a remittance of the value of oil produced by 2 to 3 acres. Is there an extra wink to the audience who would have appreciated to hear that the manager is particularly keen on having the oil producers on his side, so he gets olive oil deals or gifts aplenty in the future? To evaluate what’s going on, one would have to ascertain the olive oil consumption of a family over a year. 100 kors of grain: a kor of grain is about a year’s supply for an adult in pre-modern times. So the 20 kors remitted by the manager are a very significant amount which he may hope to get some of in the future.

How did the debtors feel, how would they react, and what would they say to the rest of the village? One may suppose they knew nothing about the conversation that happened between the master and the manager. When called by the manager, they would simply think that the master had ordered him to change the contracts. Or perhaps they may be guessing what trick is going on but don’t let on?

ἐπῄνεσεν: The story is given in shorthand at this point, and it is difficult for us to understand why the manager is praised by his master. What’s missing is what would have been obvious to an ancient audience, namely that when word came that the landowner, surprise of surprise, actually showed up in the village the next day or so, joyful expressions of gratitude were given by the whole village. Everyone would drop everything and would rush to greet him, certainly before he had had a chance to see the accounts and the “improved” contracts. There would be kissing of hands, prostrations, rejoicing, probably a feast, and praise heaped on a divine-like master who took pity on his tenants and saved them.

What is a master to do when showered with this kind of recognition, respect, and love? Surely he can’t go back on “his” decisions and revisit the contracts once more! This would be declaring war to his workers. He chooses to go along and “praises the unjust manager,” that is to say: he accepts to remit debts (he doesn’t know yet to what extent, even: irony again for the audience). Will the “unjust manager” lose his job even? So, what is most probable (but not certain) is that he has acquired an important capital of sympathy for his master, but the latter has no reason to keep him. He has gotten devoted farmers, however, especially if he ends up being fired, and will have to hope that the same remission of debts is extended to him by his superiors.

At this point, after keeping it out of the interpretation and understanding the story as best as possible on its own, allegorization may be re-introduced as a privileged reading strategy (its goal, in fact, according to the author himself and the comments at the end of the story). If the master stands for the divinity, the manager for a servant of God—recognized in that society as priests, leaders, Pharisees—,and the farmers for the common people (the listeners in fact, who are as hidden in the interpretive act done on this parable as they are in the considerations and texts of this ancient society), then the consequences of such analogical reasoning are that after the swift action by the steward, it is not possible for the master (God) to even enter into a discussion on the books and attempt to reconcile the accounts, because the celebration that has been forced by the risk taken by the steward (who knows his society and his master) has engulfed everyone in an atmosphere of joy and plenitude that the master (God) is forced to accept. This doesn’t eliminate the ancient view of debt remission, namely that good will among “tenants” is worth its weight in gold, in the long run. Divine compassion is forced by the steward’s action, and the divinity accepts to go along with the bet made by the steward.

What is being praised by Jesus as being φρονίμως, i.e. skillful rather than wise (according to the evangelist)? The dishonest steward, or rather his practical resourcefulness? Is it a moral tale, an example story? But then, was Jesus teaching that his disciples should imitate the unjust actions of the steward? Or was he teaching the listeners to imitate the steward’s shrewdness and skill? Is it a genuine parable? It would be about the kingdom of God, and a need to be decisive, as in so many of these stories, and about a notion of the divinity accepting to be tricked into compassion for his people.

Landowners and tenants in antiquity

The following is background text to Lk 16.1–9. The Roman author Columella (AD 4 to ca. AD 70) has an extensive passage on the ideal calculations landowners should make in land property management, especially regarding the type of labor they should use (direct management with slaves, vs tenants under fixed contracts, vs sharecroppers?):

After all these arrangements have been acquired or contrived, especial care is demanded of the master not only in other matters, but most of all in the matter of the persons in his service; and these are either tenant-farmers or slaves, whether unfettered or in chains. He should be civil in dealing with his tenants, should show himself affable, and should be more exacting in the matter of work than of payments, as this gives less offence yet is, generally speaking, more profitable. For when land is carefully tilled it usually brings a profit, and never a loss, except when it is assailed by unusually severe weather or by robbers; and for that reason the tenant does not venture to ask for reduction of his rent. But the master should not be insistent on his rights in every particular to which he has bound his tenant, such as the exact day for payment, or the matter of demanding firewood and other trifling services in addition, attention to which causes country-folk more trouble than expense; in fact, we should not lay claim to all that the law allows, for the ancients regarded the extreme of the law as the extreme of oppression. On the other hand, we must not neglect our claims altogether; for, as Alfius the usurer is reported to have said, and with entire truth, “Good debts become bad ones if they are not called”. [….]

But when the climate is moderately healthful and the soil moderately good, a man’s personal supervision never fails to yield a larger return from his land than does that of a tenant — never than that of even an overseer, unless the greatest carelessness or greed on the part of the slave stands in the way. There is no doubt that both these offences are either committed or fostered through the fault of the master, inasmuch as he has the authority to prevent such a person from being placed in charge of his affairs, or to see to it that he is removed if so placed.

On far distant estates, however, which it is not easy for the owner to visit, it is better for every kind of land to be under free farmers than under slave overseers, but this is particularly true of grain land. To such land a tenant farmer can do no great harm, as he can to plantations of vines and trees, while slaves do it tremendous damage: they let out oxen for hire, and keep them and other animals poorly fed; they do not plough the ground carefully, and they charge up the sowing of far more seed than they have actually sown; what they have committed to the earth they do not so foster that it will make the proper growth; and when they have brought it to the threshing-floor, every day during the threshing they lessen the amount either by trickery or by carelessness.

For they themselves steal it and do not guard it against the thieving of others, and even when it is stored away they do not enter it honestly in their accounts. The result is that both manager and hands are offenders, and that the land pretty often gets a bad name. Therefore my opinion is that an estate of this sort should be leased if, as I have said, it cannot have the presence of the owner.

Luke 16.1–9

Story of the dishonest steward. This parable is only found in Luke 16.1–9. See the literature. The story assumes an audience familiar with property management and debt system of the time. A proper understanding of the parable, therefore, has to begin with solid knowledge of the economic and legal background.

Some of the questions to be asked are: is the manager a slave? what is the source of his power to enact change in the contracts, granted the willingness of the farmers (tenants)? Second, how is one to explain the fifty percent rebate in the case of olive oil, and twenty percent in the case of grain? Higher class debt in one case, or better calculation? Or irony on the part of the story teller, regarding the real value of olive oil and its marketability? Further, is the absolute quantity about twenty years worth of the stuff? An insurance scheme of sorts then? Finally, what can one say about the level of literacy of the tenants?

Regarding basic economy of the time: first, a system of debt was in existence that drew the maximum labor possible from tenants or rather sharecroppers, and their families (meaning wives and children). Interest wouldn’t be mentioned, but can be assumed to be part of the lump sum that is owed to the master. The steward was authorized to make binding contracts for his master. He was given signs of authority for so doing. Contra certain authors (Fitzmyer more recently, for instance), the steward couldn’t have been pocketing the interest and then expect to see feelings of obligation on the part of the sharecroppers when he returned the unjustly acquired interest. His job is well described in the parable of the Talents: to make money for his master, regardless of the appropriateness of the means, and perhaps make some for himself in the process.

Note on the context: the preceding stories of God’s mercy for sinners imply that one is to share possessions with the needy.

Lost son

There were many things I wanted to tell in class today and simply didn’t get to. Here are my notes on the story of the lost son. Acknowledgment: for many of the ideas below I’m greatly indebted to Kenneth Bailey’s analysis in Poet and peasant; a literary cultural approach to the parables in Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 146–202.

The parable of the lost son, or prodigal son, gives an inkling of how the storyteller (perhaps after Jesus but one doesn’t know this: the parable is only in Luke) sees Jesus in relation to these basic metaphors, the kingdom of God and God as father. This parable, which has been seen by tradition as being at the heart of the gospel, one of 31 parables actually, looks like a version of the story of two brothers, elder and younger: Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Jacob’s ten older sons and Joseph, even Moses in relation to Aaron, the seven sons of Jesse and little David… In this kind of story, the second son is often a shepherd. In this story also, he becomes a sort of shepherd, but his herd will consist of pigs, animals whose consumption was forbidden to Jews. The two sons are not the only characters: there are two more actors in this story, the father and the village around, including his own household of house-servants and the workers in the field (sharecroppers?). The village and its sense of values, which include definite views of authority, are key to understanding the parable.

The father, who seems to be a wealthy landowner, is a figure of patriarchal authority, over land, wife (wives), sons and daughters, servants, sharecroppers. One would expect him to be part of the village or town council of elders, that is to say, deciding in all matters threatening the peace in the village. There is no apparent reason why he should formally divide his estate at this point, since he has sons. Custom would dictate that division be done as follows: two shares to the elder son, one to the younger one. In any case, the father would retain usufruct.

The request by the younger son for his share of the inheritance is a shocking demand to which the answer normally expected in this patriarchal society is extreme anger, followed by some form of judgment and ostracism or exile, even death in some extreme cases. For instance, Herod the Great accused his own son Antipater of parricide and eventually had him killed right before his own death, because he was too quick to claim the throne (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 17.52–53; 61–77; 93–99).

Contrary to normal expectations, the father “divides his substance among them” (τὸν βίον, i.e. material possessions undistinguishable from life). There is already compassion, or we the listeners at least can read it into it because we know the end, but do the sons and the village (with its other fathers, mothers, daughters and sons) and the original audience see it as compassion, rather than weakness, feeble spirit, even irrational, dotty, mad behavior?

What is the role of the elder brother at the beginning? Has he remained indifferent? Has he directly encouraged the younger son to ask for the inheritance, or indirectly, by making cohabitation difficult?

The village, perhaps on a hillside or an outcropping over a valley, knows everything or is at least interested in everything, and one may imagine servants and hired workers talking and not necessarily reporting the exact truth. They would be astounded by the father’s lack of severity, and wonder about his authority and the threat to their own.

What happens to the younger son is an inexorable fall, socially speaking. “Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had…” Did the division of property involve renewed arguments? In any case, it took a while to insist again, do the actual sharing and figure out “all he had,” under the disapproving eyes of everyone. His capital now consisted of sheep, goats, money, equivalent to his share of land. Perhaps he lost in the division, but doesn’t care. After that, he couldn’t stay in the village or anywhere near, because what he had done struck at the heart of the patriarchal control of land and the inhabitants of the village might become very hostile to him. He had lost any claim to friendship, as well as any possibility of marriage (?) in the whole area, since news travelled fast.

“He went into a far country.” Did the listeners imagine the Transjordanian plateau or the coast, Phoenician / Aramaic / and Greek speaking, but dominated by Greek cities (unless Luke’s gospel refers to the Syrian coast). There, he is a foreigner, in self-exile, without a protector or safety net, unable to establish a home, and at risk of falling prey to wrong friends. He has to spend his capital (animals, clothing, money, jewels), without any reciprocity, and at the unfavorable rate proposed to foreigners whose relatives can’t retaliate or reciprocate. So, the ἀσώτως of the text is to be understood as “spending carelessly”, but doesn’t necessarily carries the meaning of moral dissolution.

When famine comes, all his capital vanishes, he has no one from whom to borrow, nothing left to pledge as surety, and he can’t rely on bonds of kinship. The point of patriarchal strategies in land transfer, marriage, and the harsh exploitation of sharecroppers and workers was precisely to accumulate reserves in case of drought and famines (as well as to accumulate power).

He becomes a servant, “glued”, says the Greek, to a citizen of the locality. In order to survive, he has lost his freedom, he is at the call and beckoning of this person. Perhaps there is a hint of forced sexual misconduct also? His master may even have taken some vicious pleasure in sending his Jewish servant to keep a herd of pigs.

His dereliction is not yet complete, however: he is not fed by his master and so attempts to eat what the pigs eat (carob pods?), a temporary solution, not for long, and not filling (as in Lazarus’ story, where the same Greek word is used). No one is ready to give him anything, because charity was normally directed to one’s group, usually narrowly defined. He is alone, and facing possible death.

“He came to himself”: He remembers his father’s willingness, which he doesn’t see yet as compassion. His prepared speech still sounds like a prudently phrased calculation. He plans to ask to be treated as one of his father’s hired servants, meaning that he sees himself as living outside of the village, working in the fields, away from possible hostility. He is preparing his repentance, and perhaps ready to take some abuse from other servants?

“He arose and came to his father.” But the father sees him before anyone else: has he been waiting anxiously, always with an eye in the direction in which he left (months ago?). This interpretation is guided by the author’s telling of the first two stories in chapter 15: the lost sheep and coin, in which the man and woman intently seek what is missing. In our story, the father has compassion, meaning the sort of love a mother has for her baby (ἐσπλαγχνίσθη, 15.20). He runs, like Abraham, the paradigm of hospitality in the Genesis story of the three mysterious visitors, but unlike any dignified adult, especially father and commanding patriarch, of traditional society. And he is repeatedly holding him and kissing him (imperfect tenses are used).

In response to this outpouring, the son does not repeat the last part of his little speech (“treat me as one of your hired servants”), but lets his father take over. Is it because he doesn’t dare say it, or does he now suddenly understand something he hadn’t seen or even thought about before, namely the depth of the father’s compassion and the risk that he is taking? The rapidity with which the father acts is critical: Quick, says he, give him back the signs of freedom and authority. There is no resistance on the part of house-slaves, naturally, but the village inhabitants or other relatives, that is another matter. You cannot boss them around. The quickness of the patriarch’s decision means that the villagers have no time to react and question the action, because everyone is swept away into a general reconciliation. As the stories of chapter 14 of Luke negatively indicate, they cannot refuse the invitation. The feast, around the fattened calf as center-piece, i.e. something kept in reserve for a wedding perhaps, and which must be consumed immediately, would involve many people, all the relatives and neighbors, preparing, talking, dancing and playing music while waiting for the food to be ready and for everyone to come.

The elder son is busy in the field, doing what sons of landowners are supposed to do in like stories, i.e. watching the hired hands or sharecroppers. When he comes back and asks the young servant (παίς) what is happening, the servant misinterprets or at least souns underwhelmed (“your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him safe and sound.”). Perhaps there is an underlying idea again that the father is weak, and doing very puzzling things?

The older son is angry and does a terrible insult, not unlike that in v. 12 above, refusing to go in, and doing so publicly, since the whole scene after the return of the younger son is a public affair. The father responds as before, that is, he surprisingly comes out and entreats him repeatedly. The elder son starts hurling terribly insulting accusations: he has been like a slave in his father’s house, and his obedience has never been rewarded. He was never given a young goat to have a festive meal with his friends: another insulting comment, since meals should be inclusive and not the occasion of separation. The rage continues: “This son of yours:” does the phrase imply that the father is like the younger son, a wasteful individual, or is it questioning whether the son is even his?? He adds that the son lost all his capital with harlots (which commentators wrongly read back into verse 13: “loose or dissolute living”). Is that what the elder son wished to do with his friends? With the fatted calf instead of a young goat? The rage might lead to another question: Why don’t you die and let me truly be master?

The father, astonishingly again, shows no anger, which is perhaps misunderstood once more, as in v. 12? In answer to all the constraints of custom and the reference to “obeying commands,” the father says that he didn’t do an irrational thing, but that it was necessary, indeed the only solution.

At the end of the reading, what might the ancient listener or reader think? Would they think that the younger son is likely to respond to his father’s compassion with total love and devotion? Likely also to behave towards the “workers in the field,” i.e. the people working and waiting for relief, food, justice, with the same compassion and urgency, risk-taking, and forbearance as those shown by his own father? Would he feed the multitudes, heal, and forgive? How will he behave towards his elder brother who is in a rage at the door? Here is the most terrible risk he can take, because his older brother (an Esau figure to the younger son’s Jacob the trickster) may look at his younger brother as an impostor and hate him rather than trust him.

Allegory 1: This tiny beginning in the business of forgiveness, the author of Luke sees as potentially expanding to universal dimensions, as a mustard plant growing like a weed to tree-like proportions from a tiny seed, or as leaven acting within a lump of dough.

Allegory 2: If this kind of stories was told by the historical Jesus, one may be less surprised by the reactions to him of Herod Antipas, his officers, friends and relatives, and the reaction of the temple authorities, who are the elders, closely tied to God’s temple / house, and minding the store. How could they accept the invitation to imitate a non-calculating divinity and let go of their hold?

Allegory 3: the story is about divine forgiveness. But what is forgiveness? the definition of it, or deepening of the notion of divine mercy, entails a redefinition (or rather an infinite broadening) of that of sin. Forgiveness is an old notion belonging to the broader one of gift and grace (superabundant grace and gift of life), framed in the Hebrew bible as the main characteristic of the divinity.

The notion of debt and forgiveness (formulated as a release of debt: no more the older language of lifting, wiping, removing, transferring, wiping, cleaning) became fundamental in the Hellenistic period and even more under the Roman empire, when it became more clear than ever that all economic actors, no matter their religious pretense or sollicitation for cover (paramount example, that of Herod), were in debt and in need of forgiveness or release.

Finally, a further reflection on possession and patriarchal structures of this ancient society. The story is throwing light on a most difficult subject, namely the nature of possession or control over land and labor and the seeming aporia that it is given (in fact pure gift, which is formulated as forgiveness). What was at stake? There is a contradiction at the heart of possession. Its hidden nature is of being a gift, but it appears as outright possession (that of the older son, in his view). To say it in other words: security in possession, or access to *real* estate (also framed as patriarchal authority in that society) cannot be achieved without recognizing it as gift, and its giver (the “donor”). This can be done only, according to the story, through loss (cf. Aqedah in Genesis 22), and what appears as a more perfect, second giving in which the dimension of the giving appears irrational (climactically so), yet the outcome more rational (“It is fitting”) than the status ante quem, which presented itself as calculation of positions and interests but in fact was hiding bitterness, jealousy, rebellion, and hate. (note: I owe much of this insight to Jean-Luc Marion’s *Certitudes négatives*, 2009).

Then, what was sin, what constituted sin? Was it the absence of recognition of the nature of the gift and giver? which, given the abundance of the gift (life), meant sin was also of a flexible, potentially infinite nature? The relationship with a unique, personal divinity was the main ground. Power was the way to describe its universality, especially the power of creation, which the story in Genesis or in Job eventually defined as near absolute. There is a line of development there, from the 6th to the 2d century. The logic of economic, religious, and political structures had become more clear and more extensive in Hellenistic times, its contradictions (especially the religious ones) unavoidable—see already Qumran movement—in the Roman empire. So, the notion of possession and control over resources and labor, including the structure of future control (inheritance), became more clear also. The gospel of Luke is engaging a serious discussion of the politics and economics of its time.

Gift and countergift

Luke 14 tells shocking stories about the recalibration of honor- and shame-based social expectations. Lk 14.12–14:

He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’

This reminder concerning the resurrection is the key to understanding the new system of reciprocity. The parables aim at entirely removing the honor and shame dynamics from its normal province and remapping it on a vertical axis, the person and group to God, with an infinitely remote, ideal, landowner figure, God, inviting everyone. The banqueting at the divine table, the messianic banquet, is indefinitely delayed, yet at hand, in the new companionship of the new brothers, kins, friends, with the story teller at and on the table.

I mentioned the remote landowner figure. In antiquity, divine figures were expressions on a “vertical axis” (temples on mountains, metaphoric or not, large-sized statuary, astral gods and goddesses, powers in heavens) of a social and historical reality which could not be, and was not to be, spoken about directly.

The agonistic gift and expected countergift system, on the other hand, publically defined or redefined the persons and their groups on a “horizontal axis.” That was of utmost concern and permanent interest to everyone. But “horizontal axis” didn’t mean only the visible here and now, the immediately proximate neighbor or kin. Consider the spatial aspect of this “axis.” Note how the great feast, a demonstrative gift—it is not a wedding, which defines a more expansive kind of relation—, reaches out to far-away guests who need to be told in advance of the feast (on this topic, see Green’s commentary, after Bailey), and then told a second time when the time is right for the feast. A key issue, then, was that gifts and eventual countergifts were used to extend and reinforce one’s economic reach beyond family and extended kinship obviously, as well as beyond village or town. This was a critical issue in the politics of the Mediterranean world, tied mostly to the need to increase access to land and labor, and the corollary need to abate risk via property and labor dispersion.

A similar argument can be developed regarding the time dimension. This aspect is not noted by Hénaff, as far as I can see, in his thoughtful, wide-ranging discussion of Weber and Mauss in: “Religious ethics, gift exchange and capitalism,” in Archives of European Sociology 44 [2003]: 293–324). The exchange in the gift and countergift system has a built-in time dimension. Of course, a cardinal principle of the ancient world was to put pressure on those who received gifts (everyone) to return the favors of givers the sooner the better: bis dat qui cito dat, according to Publilius Syrus. But most of the “obligations” so contracted were discharged in time, sometimes a very long time. On the crucial import of this time factor and the need to frame the countergift as something else than a pure return of a favor (a copy of it, that immediacy would indicate), see P. Bourdieu, The logic of practice (Stanford UP: 1983): 105. The grace(s) of the system hid as best as they could the crudity of the calculations. And so, for instance, one needs to ask oneself whether the putative widow and children of a landowner who behaved like the banquet-giver of the Lukan story would eventually receive protections of all kinds—real value— from old “friends” of her husband after his death, or whether the obligations would wear out if not reinforced by the demonstration of power the kind of banquets described in the Lukan story illustrates?

In other words, gifts and countergifts, organized into a benefaction or evergetic system, publically reinforced and re-evaluated the status of people by defining and renegotiating their capacity to draw on and exchange acts of generosity or grace at a distance in time and space. It was a general exchange system, quite as complicated or manyfold as the modern market, with space and time dimensions that everyone was consummately interested in but that no one could master. It has been systematically studied by ancient historians (P. Veyne, etc.).

Although general and reaching beyond the immediately visible borders of kinship and localities, reciprocity systems of antiquity couldn’t take into account all that went into composing the person and the group. The ideal of autarcy—on which see Aristotle et al—was just that, a proud claim that negatively reflected the reality.

There was a more hidden, invisible, real ground for the competitive claims of autarcy by Greco-Roman landowners, and this is what the Lukan story is aiming at. The capacity to project and broaden one’s circle by gracious giving depended on access to land and labor. This access to, and control of, land and labor—“five teams of oxen,” women, slave(s)—depended superficially on the kind of relationships expressed by “giving a great feast.” The network created by honor and shame values was about gaining and securing access to the real means for the banquet, which were the exploitation by military coercion, rents—via sharecropping especially—, taxation, usury, directly enforced labor of women, children, and slaves. That is the massive, hidden source of the wealth advertised as “righteous blessing” and used in a competition for more security, that is to say, the broader circle of friends and obligations.

Do ut des

Or: “I give that you may give”. A new economy is clearly proposed by the author of Luke, but how radical or even anarchic is it? Free gifts, i.e. gifts to people who cannot reciprocate, do not make friends, or do they? Please read Luke 14 for Wednesday, and Green 539-68. We will focus on 14.7-14 (the economy of the gift) and 14.15-24 (the guest list for the great dinner).

Some of the readings on the question of the gift economy are: M. Mauss, The Gift (1924), translated by W. D. Hals (NY/London: Norton, 1990); M. Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972). Annette Weiner, Inalienable Possessions; the Paradox of Keeping while Giving (Berkeley: UC Press, 1992); M. Godelier, The Enigm of the Gift (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1999); M. Hénaff, “Religious Ethics, Gift Exchange and Capitalism” Archives européennes de sociologie 44 (2003), 293–324 (especially pages 307–315, for what concerns us).

Transfiguration

Or rather, on the politics of transfiguration. Jesus, Luke writes in 9.28b-31,

took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. [NRSV]

Several elements engage the reader to compare the story of the transfiguration to that told about Moses and the people in Exodus 34. But before going to them, here is the end of this Exodus chapter which recounts how Moses went back up the Sinai mountain to get a second set of stone tablets of the law, the imperishable kind written by the divine finger or tachygraphed under divine dictation:

3429Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. 30When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. 31But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. 32Afterwards all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; 34but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, 35the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him. [NRSV]

The elements inviting a serious comparison are the following. We have a limit character (to be defined, because he is beyond the usual boundaries), whether Moses, Elijah the Tishbite at a lesser degree, and Jesus; the mountain; prayer (worshipping in the case of Moses in Ex 34.8); the dazzling or shining of the face for Moses and of clothing for Jesus. In Jesus’ case, the face is not said to glow, but it does sort of, hendiadycally. The idea of brilliance is indicated by two effects, that on the face and the clothes.

I read the Exodus chapter as part of a text created by a priest group after the fall of the Judaean kingdom. It mentions no kings, contrary to what one would normally expect in ancient societies whose kings guaranteed the application of divinely-expressed laws (presented as coming from the divinity, or inspired in some way by it). Moses is no king, no prophet normally (in spite of the tradition), and no priest (in spite of his Levite-ness). Surprisingly in regard to the latter, it is his brother Aaron who is imagined to start the priesthood line. I can’t go in the detail of all these questions here, but the short of it is: the writers of the book of Exodus have thought long and hard about their political condition under the Babylonians and the Persians, after the collapse of their own kings and temple(s) and god(s), and are re-thinking the type of mediation likely to work for them and the people. Moses is their hero-mediator, but this mediation itself is a problem. Direct access to the ground for authority (religious and political, since Moses is the founder of the nation) must be mediated, hence the veil on his face. Hence also the story on the death of Moses in Moab, and his burial by God in a grave not to be found. Access to the founder is denied by the story: no monumentalization (think of any political system’s representation of its own foundations, be it the Kremlin with the Lenin mausoleum and mummy, “to this day,” or the Washington Mall, the Vatican, etc.), no relics, no political derivation by touching metonymically the imaginary source of power.

One could do a similar reasoning for Elijah (end of the first book of Kings), the resident or marginal prophet (Tishbite, a toshav), who does some shocking things such as being fed by crows or living with a foreign/enemy widow, and who is taken up to heaven (2 Kings 2), like Enoch (Gen 5.24).

Back to the transfiguration scene. The disciples are invited up the mountain in this story of re-foundation. So one could see this as some political progress: the people are there up with the founder, this time, though it is only the male part of the people, through their three paradigmatic representatives. Remember that three disciple women were named by Luke also, but disconnected (somewhat) from hearing and preaching the new word, and made part of a life of service and support. No veil between these male representatives of the disciples and Jesus in all his power. No tents either, which I take to mean: no monuments or relics or temple on a mountain top, no memorializing of this brief vision and contact with the imagined source of power. This is a story about someone who somewhat like Moses and Elijah (and Henoch could be added) leaves no monument or relics of his body after his death. The tomb will be empty. Of course, this was unacceptable to many and hasn’t prevented Christianity at all, especially with Constantine and his numerous past and present successors, from looking for that tomb and “inventing” (=finding) the true cross. The story of the transfiguration, in spite of its being rooted in a reflection on the absence of fixed ground for any political system, will become a source of power transmitted through the church organization, from apostles and disciples to early episcopal authorities. But the worm is in the fruit, let’s call it the sign of Jonah.

The feeding

Luke 9.10–17:

When the crowds found out about it, they followed him; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.

The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to him and said, ‘Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a deserted place.’ But he said to them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said, ‘We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.’ For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, ‘Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.’ They did so and made them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

The communion meal rituals influenced this text, in the way it reports about organizing, and expanding a modicum of food that exists. This story is not quite about manna falling from heavens, as in Exodus. Rather it is about the sharing a new community can begin and develop.

One comment about “he looked up to heaven”: this gesture is often spiritualized and hence normalized in modern interpretations, as a ritual gesture and therefore a rather unimportant detail. But what if this looking up is actually expressing a direct demand for the miracle, and is done or reported by the evangelist in full awareness of what it meant in a society in which goods were limited, and miracles were to be compensated? I suggested that someone had to pay for the disturbance caused to the “limited good” economy, in the ancient view. I mentioned a story found in the talmud which neatly shows what was at stake. It is found in the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Ta`anith 24a (Soncino translation):

Once R. Jose had day-labourers [working] in the field; night set in and no food was brought to them and they said to his son, `We are hungry’. Now they were resting under a fig tree and he exclaimed: Fig tree, fig tree, bring forth thy fruit that my father’s labourers may eat. It brought forth fruit and they ate. Meanwhile the father came and said to them, Do not bear a grievance against me; the reason for my delay is because I have been occupied up till now on an errand of charity. The labourers replied, May God satisfy you even as your son has satisfied us. Whereupon he asked: Whence? And they told him what had happened. Thereupon he said to his son: My son, you have troubled your Creator to cause the fig tree to bring forth its fruit before its time, may you too be taken hence before your time!

Aramaic and Hebrew:
ומא חד הוו אגרי ליה אגירי בדברא נגה להו ולא אייתי להו ריפתא אמרו ליה לבריה כפינן הוו יתבי תותי תאינתא אמר תאנה תאנה הוציאי פירותיך ויאכלו פועלי אבא אפיקו ואכלו אדהכי והכי אתא אבוה אמר להו לא תינקטו בדעתייכו דהאי דנגהנא אמצוה טרחנא ועד השתא הוא דסגאי אמרו ליה רחמנא לישבעך כי היכי דאשבען ברך אמר להו מהיכא אמרו הכי והכי הוה מעשה אמר לו בני אתה הטרחת את קונך להוציא תאנה פירותיה שלא בזמנה יאסף שלא בזמנו

Mission of the twelve

Among the things discussed in class, I suggested that Jesus’ recommendations to his disciples in Luke 9.3, repeated with serious differences in Luke 10, extend rules of behavior which applied strictly to the temple in Jerusalem: He said to them, ‘Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic.[….]’ Here is what Mishnah Berakhoth (“Blessings”) 9.5 says:

One should not enter the Temple mount with his walking stick, his shoes, his money-bag, or with dust on his feet. And one should not use [it] for a shortcut. And spitting a fortiori. [….] And they ordained that an individual should greet his fellow with [God’s] name.

Even though the tradition has been significantly changed in the Lucan text, the parallel is still valid. An additional argument is the business about dusting one’s feet as a testimony (Lk 9.5). The meaning then would be that Jesus is sending his disciples in the whole territory or world as if it was the sacred precinct of the Jerusalem temple. This would be similar to what Pharisees of his time are understood to have been doing, at least by Jacob Neusner et alii, namely extending the system of priestly purity rules obtaining at the temple to some of the “profane” times and places: the meals. Jesus is re-interpreting the dynamics of sacredness and commonality (profaneness) and extending sacred space and time to the whole land. Divine protection and care, which was normally mediated by the Temple in Jerusalem, could from now on be mediated by people anytime, anywhere.

An indication of this expansion is the story of the hemorrhaging woman who touched the fringe of his clothes (Lk 8.44). The word used, κρασπεδόν, denotes the special fringes made of a very minimal special mixture of animal and vegetal fibers (linen and wool) which were forbidden in normal life (in profane or common life). They were a reminder of a sophisticated embroidery demanded only at the temple, which consisted of the systematic mixing of not only fibers but also metallic threads (gold and silver) and precious stones (at least on the high-priest, and on the veil, or parokhet)—a sort of super-recomposition of the cosmos, as Josephus intimates—. The touching by the woman, to my mind, reminds one of the normal structure of ancient healing stories (touching spirit-loaded statues, trees, objects, people, etc.), yes, but also reminds one of the temple. Here the temple as source of healing has become highly mobile and flexible.

On parables (Kafka)

A wise word from Kafka in The complete stories (NY: Schocken, 1946, p. 457; translated by W. and E. Muir):

Many complain that the words of the wise are always merely parables and of no use in daily life, which is the only life we have. When the sage says: “Go over,” he does not mean that we should cross to some actual place, which we could do anyhow if the labor were worth it; he means some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something that he cannot designate more precisely either, and therefore cannot help us here in the very least. All these parables really set out to say merely that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and we know that already. But the cares we have to struggle with every day: that is a different matter.
Concerning this a man once said: Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid of all your daily cares.
Another said: I bet that is also a parable.
The first said: You have won.
The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.
The first said: No, in reality: in parable you have lost.

And a shorter one:

For we are like tree trunks in the snow. In appearance they lie sleekly and a little push should be enough to set them rolling. No, it can’t be done, for they are firmly wedded to the ground. But see, even that is only appearance.