Parables are like jokes: The punch line takes you by surprise
On my walk home from the Post Office today, I saw an acquaintance who is an emergency room doctor. I paused to ask, “Are you staying healthy?” He said, “Yes. Amazingly. I am around COVID patients all the time, but I have not been sick.” I said, “I think doctors must have very robust immune systems from being around sick people all the time.” He smiled and replied, “I’m like Westley. I just take a little iocaine powder at a time.”
I laughed—but only because I have seen The Princess Bride multiple times, and I immediately remembered that scene from the movie about the fictitious “colorless, odorless, and deadly poison from Australia.” Westley explains in the film that he spent two years building up a tolerance to iocaine powder, and he used his immunity to trick Vizzini in their battle of wits. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMz7JBRbmNo)
If I had not seen The Princess Bride, I would not have had that immediate response to the doctor’s humor. Humor only works if the other person knows enough to get the point. If you have to explain to someone why what you said is funny, the humor is gone. Without shared experience, most humor falls flat.
I never could teach a class without cracking jokes. I don’t plan humor for my lectures. Things just come to mind and out they come. Early in my teaching career, I found that international students were at a disadvantage. I would tell a joke, and the American students would be laughing; but the international students would just sit there looking confused. Humor often differs between cultures. As I grew older, however, I began to realize that clever allusions to movies or sayings that used to be common knowledge would confuse my young, American students. If I made reference to a well-known line in a popular movie that was more than a decade old, there was a good chance they had not seen it. Increasingly, I had to think about whether or not my students would get the punch line of some humorous comment I made. If they did not get the allusion, the impact was gone.
Many of Jesus’s parables are like jokes. Often they turn listener expectations upside down. Like jokes, they only work if the punch line takes us by surprise. But if we don’t know the cultural details that give a parable its punch, we simply do not feel the major point. And if someone has to explain the point, parables fall flat. Parables, like jokes, work best when there is a sense of immediacy with the stories. If they punch us in the gut, if we feel the impact, then we get the point. But our life experience differs so much from Jesus’s cultural context that we often do not feel the impact of his stories.
Consequently, when teaching Jesus’ parables, I needed to provide historical and cultural background information first. After my students understood more about Jesus’ cultural context, they began to feel the power of his parables. In future blog posts, I will comment on a few of Jesus’ parables to illustrate this point. For a much longer explanation of parable interpretation, see “Chapter 15: Jesus’ Parabolic Speech Forms: Turning Expectations Upside Down” in Interpreting Biblical Literature, pages 319–343.
“Go straight to Sheol”: Creative Exercises for Bible Study
Most students in my introductory Biblical Studies classes were not aware that ancient Hebrews had no developed belief in afterlife. On the same day that I found the sinner by casting lots, I used the poem in Jonah 2 to introduce students to Sheol.
Interestingly, Jonah does not jump into the sea but makes the sailors throw him overboard. Note that a big fish swallows him (1:17). There were no whales in the Mediterranean, and there was not even a word for whale in Hebrew. Also note that Jonah was in the fish for three days before he began to pray. This prophet was REALLY stubborn: “Then Jonah prayed to the LORD from the belly of the fish, saying, ‘I called to the LORD out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice’” (Jonah 2:1). Hebrew poetry often uses synonymous parallelism, where the second line of a poem restates the first line in different words. Being in the belly of the fish was like being in Sheol (also called “the Pit”: 2:6). But what was Sheol/the Pit?
Instead of merely explaining Sheol to students, I had them get into groups of three and look up a series of passages that mention Sheol. When they saw for themselves the descriptions of Sheol, they became much more engaged in discussing what they discovered. Here is the exercise I gave to them. Be aware that some group members may be confused at first because they have a Bible that translates Sheol as “the grave.”
What in the World is Sheol? (Interpreting Biblical Literature, p. 112)
Look up the verses listed below and read what they say about Sheol (also called “the Pit”).
- Numbers 16:30;
- Psalms 6:4–5; 30:9; 88:3–6, 10–12; 89:48; 94:17; 115:17;
- Job 3:13, 17–19; 7:9–10; 10:20–21; 16:22;
- Ecclesiastes 9:2–6, 10;
- Isaiah 5:14; 14:9; 26:14;
- Jonah 2:2, 6.
Group Questions to discuss:
- Where is Sheol located?
- What words are used to describe Sheol? (What is it like?)
- Who goes to Sheol?
- How does the concept of Sheol differ from beliefs about heaven and hell?
Some students become troubled to learn that ancient Hebrews did not believe in an afterlife but thought that everyone—both the good and the bad—went to Sheol when they died. Soon thereafter, I had students read other biblical passages that illustrate the Hebrew belief that people experienced God’s blessings during their life, not after death. Concepts of heaven and hell developed much later. The Sheol exercise introduces students to the fact that the beliefs of ancient Hebrews developed slowly. One does not find fully developed Christian theology in the Old Testament.
Be ready for pushback from students whose beliefs about biblical inspiration mandate that everything in the Bible must be totally consistent with comments made elsewhere in the Bible. But when my students actually read the Bible for class assignments, they saw for themselves such developments of belief. As odd as it may sound, studying the Bible in a systematic way can initially be disorienting for Christian students. Over the course of a semester, however, most became comfortable with the concept of the Bible being a collection of documents written over centuries to address different historical circumstances. Knowing more about historical and cultural context makes a huge difference in understanding what biblical passages meant for ancient audiences.
In two minds about travel
Okay, I admit I am of two minds. On the one hand, when traveling to new places, I like the freedom of choosing where I go and how long I stay there. On the other hand, I enjoy being with a group of interesting people and letting a knowledgeable tour guide decide the itinerary and take care of housing and transportation.
When my wife and I have our own adventures in other countries, invariably we get lost and frustrated. We sweat and fret and try not to get too frustrated when dealing with the difficulties that always arise with transportation, locating places to stay, finding places to eat, and in general navigating cultural differences—including language barriers. I hesitate to estimate how many times I have been frustrated at taking the wrong road, wandering aimlessly trying to find a café, or finding a museum and paying museum fees—not to mention remembering to drive on the left in Cyprus. But we have had some wonderful, memorable, serendipitous experiences amidst the messiness of navigating other cultures—things that simply could not happen if we were part of a tour group.
We have also had very positive experiences in countries such as Israel and Turkey while being part of a tour group: relaxing in a bus while an experienced driver took us to set destinations, not having to decide where we were going to spend the night or where we would eat (and negotiating prices), and having a guide explain where we were going and then leading us around each site. No worries. Just enjoy the trip. Of course, I have to conform to a schedule set up by someone else, which limits my freedom of how long I will roam around the sites we visit. I have griped about that more than once.
I have decided that, for the first exposure to another country, being part of a tour group has a lot of advantages. Then, if I want to return and explore the country at my own pace and go to places that are not on the main tour routes, I can return and do my own thing with more confidence and less initial frustration. I wish I were independently wealthy and could afford to travel more now that I am retired. I also wish this COVID pandemic would end so that making travel plans could be more predictable again. Soon! Let it be soon!
Casting Lots to find the Sinner: Creative Ideas for Bible Classes
In some Bible stories, people cast lots to determine a course of action. Variations of this approach to obtaining divine guidance were common in the ancient Near East. Not many people in American society today, however, roll dice to discover God’s will for such matters as knowing whom to marry. And I have never heard of a jury identifying guilt or innocence this way in a court of law. The short story of Jonah provides a great way to illustrate how the practice worked.
My textbook Interpreting Biblical Literature first introduces readers to the cultural practices of people in biblical times—marriage customs, etc. I begin the actual study of biblical books not by starting with Genesis but by reading the short story of Jonah to look for plot and character development. Jonah is such a quirky character that students enjoy discussing how he gets angry and pouts and demands that God kill all Assyrians in Nineveh. I had them find on a map the location of Nineveh, capital of Assyria, where God commanded Jonah to go. Jonah boards a boat bound for Tarshish, most likely the area now called Spain—as far in the opposite direction from Nineveh as Jonah could go (given the understanding of the world at that time). He really hated Assyrians! I explain in Interpreting Biblical Literature pp. 110–111 why Israelites were justified in hating Assyrians.
Then the storm strikes. Those on the boat fear for their lives, and the sailors set out to discover the person who was responsible for the gods causing the storm at sea.
The sailors said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, “Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” “I am a Hebrew,” he replied. “I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” Then the men were even more afraid, and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them so. (Jonah 1: 7–10 NRSV)
Oh, great! This stupid Hebrew has upset the God who created the sea!
The sailors’ belief that the storm resulted from gods being upset with someone elicits interesting discussions. I would ask, “Do you believe that if a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast, it is caused by someone offending God?” “No,” they would always reply. Then I would impersonate someone on the Weather Channel explaining that a search was underway to find the person responsible for the severe weather approaching Atlanta or some other city.
To demonstrate how people in biblical times cast lots to find the guilty person, I would take a pair of dice from my pocket and explain that the dice answer simple “Yes” or “No” questions. I began by dividing the class into two groups and asking, “Is the guilty person in this half of the class?” I rolled the dice, looked at them and authoritatively declared, “Yes” or “No,” depending on which side of the class I wanted to make squirm. I did not know which person I would finally identify as the guilty party. I kept dividing the remaining students into smaller and smaller groups as I continued to roll the dice. I watched faces and playfully interacted with students during the this process of making further divisions and asking the dice, “Is it someone in this section?”
As I observed the responses of my students, I made comments like, “Ben, why are you looking so guilty? Do you have something to confess?” As I rolled the dice and narrowed the possibilities down to the last two students, I urged the guilty party to confess his or her sin. Finally, the lots led me to the sinner whose actions had caused the storm. Students enjoyed this demonstration of lots and asked questions about the process and the beliefs that lie behind it. Invariably, someone would ask if I would seek the will of God by rolling dice. “No,” I said. “I would never trust rolling dice to make an important decision.” But I added that one religious group in our area continues to use the same concept for deciding on who in their congregation will be their next pastor. They reason that the decision is too important to make on the basis of human vote. The selection has to be left up to God. So they put a note in one of the hymnbooks placed on a pew at the front of the church. Each nominated candidate chooses a book, and the one who selects the book with the note in it becomes the next pastor. “How would you assess this approach?” I asked. Discussions could be quite animated.
For more details, see “Jonah: A Fish Story about a Stubborn Prophet” (Interpreting Biblical Literature, pp. 108–115). Coming up next: Jonah wanted all Assyrians to go straight to Sheol.
Biblical Illiteracy among Christian Students: Part 2
My observations of Christian students knowing less and less about the Bible were not unique. In conversations with Bible professors from around the USA and Canada, I consistently heard that they were experiencing the same phenomenon. Many of my students firmly believed in the inspiration of Scripture and could assert a handful of beliefs they picked up in church along the way, but they lacked the ability to explain how they arrived at these beliefs—other than quoting a few Bible verses with no real knowledge of the context of these verses. Functionally, many use Scripture as a magical text and barely recognize it as a collection of different kinds of literature written over many centuries by people who lived in cultures that differed considerably from our own.
About ten years ago, I attended a disturbing lecture about biblical knowledge. The speaker led a team of researchers who documented that Europeans tend to know more about the content of the Bible than Americans, but they don’t believe it. Conversely, Americans tend to know very little about the Bible but many nevertheless have strong beliefs about its divine inspiration and claim to believe in it. To describe Christian students, the speaker used a term coined by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton: “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” (Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers [Oxford University Press, 2005]). Students tend to believe that God wants people to be nice, and the main goal of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself. They read isolated verses of the Bible for reflection on personal problems. They seldom read the Bible in any systematic way and have an extremely limited grasp of larger theological issues. Indeed, they typically do not even care about such matters. Yet they become agitated when they hear views contrary to what their church teaches.
At the beginning of my introductory Bible classes, I often did a quick poll to discover how many different denominational backgrounds my students represented. “How many of you are Baptists? How many of you are Methodists? How many of you are Lutherans? How many are Catholics? ….” With a wry smile, I asked how they would like to teach a class composed of people from so many different denominations, each group believing they have a corner on the truth. “Let’s just set aside our theological constraints for a while,” I said, “and read the Bible with the intent of seeing what it says—not forcing it to say what we want it to say.” The skepticism on many faces was obvious. So, I had them get into groups of three and read the Nativity Story in Luke 2 and answer some basic questions (see https://cosbycogitations.wordpress.com/2021/12/19/sorry-but-your-modern-story-of-jesus-birth-is-mostly-wrong/ ). By the time we finished discussing their answers—which always included Mary being nine months pregnant when she arrived in Bethlehem, riding on a donkey, and giving birth to Jesus in a stable—students had that deer-in-the-headlights look. If they were so wrong about such a familiar story, what details were they reading into other Bible stories?
Call it a shock treatment to inspire them to ask questions. Some rose to the challenge and thrived in my classes. They began asking substantive questions. Some wanted to know, “Why did we never learn these things in church?” Good question. Others refused to become engaged with the biblical stories I had them read. They glared at me as if I were some sort of heretic when I did not reinforce what they already believed. They did not understand the difference between education and indoctrination.
During a discussion over lunch with an American history professor, I heard my colleague lament, “The biggest problem we have with students all across campus is their lack of curiosity. They just want us to tell them what will be on the exams. How can we educate students who lack interest in learning?” He was even more dismayed when I told him that students majoring in Youth Ministry were on average not motivated to engage in serious biblical study. Some were wonderful and did extremely well in my classes, but many were simply not interested in putting effort into learning anything that was not immediately applicable to leading youth meetings. I began to dread teaching upper level classes that Youth Ministry majors were required to take.
I also noticed that the majority of Education majors in my classes lacked curiosity and revealed a substandard work ethic. I often wonder what effect Youth Ministry and Education majors will have on the next generation of youth when these unmotivated learners assume positions of leadership.
To aid my efforts to spark curiosity, I wrote Interpreting Biblical Literature, a textbook designed to facilitate student interest. I made sure it was filled with color photos and textboxes and creative exercises. Often, students told me, “Your book is interesting—not boring like my other textbooks.” Sometimes they shyly admitted becoming so interested in a chapter that they accidentally read more than I had assigned in the syllabus. I considered that a high compliment. My book is a helpful resource, but using it did not solve all the problems with students lacking curiosity. I fear that this issue has become epidemic in our culture—especially with regard to religion and politics. People listen to a few gurus who reinforce their own viewpoints instead of actively weighing different viewpoints and honestly considering the merits of each. And algorithms on Internet search engines facilitate people reading what they already believe. We have too many dogmatic disciples and too few curious learners.
Biblical Illiteracy among students at Christian colleges
Before retirement, I taught at a Christian liberal arts college that placed importance on the value of the Bible, and most of our students came from Christian families. Each year I noticed a downward trend in how much my Bible-believing students knew about the Bible. However, their ignorance of the Bible did not prevent them from fiercely defending their beliefs. They confidently proclaimed the TRUTH of the Bible but had very little knowledge of what the Bible actually says.
To illustrate this incongruity to my students, I sometimes gave a Basic Bible Knowledge Quiz during the first class session of my introductory Bible class. Students had to write answers to questions such as “In what town was Jesus born?” and “List in order the four Gospels.” Out of a total of 50 possible points, scores ranged from 5 to 50. The average score in my classes was around 60%. As a group, they either got a D– or an F+ on the quiz.
Here are some of the answers students wrote on one particular quiz.
- Ruth and Hebrews are among the three Old Testament books called Major Prophets.
- The Sermon on the Mount is found in Exodus.
- Two of the 12 Tribes of Israel were the Canninites and the Isrealits.
- Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mt. Olives.
- Jesus was baptized either in the Nile River or the Red Sea, and he was crucified just outside of Rome.
- David and Samuel were two of Jesus’12 Apostles.
- The book of the Bible that is a collection of erotic love poems is Corinthians, Psalms, or ecclesiasties. [Interestingly, many students actually got this question right, which might reveal something about their interest in the Song of Songs.]
- Many said the Roman ruler who sentenced Jesus to be crucified was named Pilot, although one wrote Blasphimer.
- In response to “Name one of the Jewish religious sects during the time of Jesus,” one student put washing feet and another said Passover.
For the next class session, I had them write a brief statement of what they believed about the inspiration of Scripture and explain how they thought Christians should interpret and apply the Bible. By the time I graded these papers, I had compiled the students’ quiz scores.
I noticed that some of the students who said the most exalted things about the Bible were the ones who scored the lowest on the quiz. On one paper, I wrote, “If the Bible is inerrant as you say, and absolutely central to the daily life of a Christian, as you assert in your paper, how do you explain the fact that you got only 15 points out of 50 on the basic, Bible knowledge quiz?”
During the third class session, I asked, “If the Bible is as important as you as a class believe, then why do so few of you actually read it?” The students stared at me silently for a while. Finally, one brave young man said, “Because it is boring, and I don’t understand it.” “Now, we are getting somewhere,” I responded. “By the time this semester is over, all of you, including those who did well on the quiz, will know a lot more about the Bible than you do now. My job is to help you understand biblical stories in light of their ancient historical and cultural contexts. You will find the class to be challenging—and hopefully quite rewarding. I will lead you on a cross-cultural journey into the world of the Bible. You better put on your explorer hats and get your inoculations. Some of what you encounter might upset your tummies.”
Nativity Part 6: When was Jesus actually born?
Luke 1:5 says Jesus was born during the reign of Herod, who died in 4 BC. Matthew 2:16 claims that Herod massacred all children in the Bethlehem area (where Jesus was born) who were two years old or younger. In Matthew’s version, Jesus was not an infant when wise men from the East brought gifts to Mary and Joseph’s house in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:11–12). If Jesus was a toddler during the reign of Herod, he would have been born around 6 BC. So why are our calendars six or so years off?
A monk by the name of Dionysius Exiguus, in the year AD 525, miscalculated when Jesus was born. In AD 731, a man named Bede used Dionysius’s incorrect calculation of the year of Jesus’ birth as the basis for his historical chronology in his history of the English church. Later, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII sponsored development of what is now called the Gregorian calendar. Working with the Jesuit priest and astronomer Christopher Clavius and using calculations by Johannes Kepler, he produced an official calendar—one that reformed the Julian Calendar that had been in use since 45 BC. However, Gregory’s calendar used Dionysius’s calculation of when Jesus was born to determine years BC (“before Christ”) and AD (Anno Domini—“in the year of the Lord”). And because the Gregorian Calendar is the basis for modern calendars, the error is now permanent. What year is it? Add six years to 2021. [If you have enjoyed these posts on the Nativity Story, you would also enjoy and learn much from Interpreting Biblical Literature, which contains a lot more information about the customs and cultures of biblical times.]
Nativity Part 5: Different birth accounts in Matthew and Luke
Comparing the birth narratives in Luke and Matthew reveals only a few details common to both Gospels: Joseph was betrothed to the Virgin Mary, and Jesus was born in Bethlehem. In Luke, the angel Gabriel delivers messages to Zechariah and Mary. In Matthew, divine guidance comes to Joseph (not Mary) via dreams. Luke emphasizes Jesus’ ministry to the poor. When Joseph and Mary have Jesus circumcised on the eighth day after his birth, instead of offering a lamb for purification, they “offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons’” (Luke 2:24). According to Leviticus 12:8, this two-bird offering was for poor people who could not afford a lamb. In Luke, Joseph and Mary live in Nazareth, and they go to Bethlehem for taxation because Joseph is from that village. Poor shepherds adore the newborn savior (Luke 2:8–20). Luke places far more emphasis on Mary than he does on Joseph.
Matthew’s birth narrative presents a picture fitting for the arrival of a Jewish king, with foreign dignitaries bringing expensive gifts to the young Jesus (Matthew 2:1–12). Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem, and Jesus is around two years old when the wise men from the East come with gifts. Only in Matthew does Herod kill the little children. Only in Matthew does Joseph take Mary and Jesus to Egypt. And in Matthew, Joseph moves to Nazareth only after he returns from Egypt and fears to relocate in Bethlehem (2:22–23). Matthew focuses on Joseph, the pious Jewish father, not Mary.
Whereas Luke 1–2 describes the parents of John the Baptist and his birth, Matthew is silent about these matters. Whereas Luke 1–2 includes poetic pronouncements attributed to various characters, Matthew 1–2 uses frequent Scripture quotations. The other Gospels refer to Scripture, but none approaches the extent to which Matthew quotes the Bible for his Jewish Christian audience. Matthew’s birth narrative repeatedly quotes the Prophets to explain why events happened: “All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet” (1:22; see also 2:5; 2:14; 2:17; 2:23).
Matthew opens with a genealogy that begins with Abraham, the father of the Hebrew people, and traces the royal lineage forward through King David to Jesus. The genealogy in Luke 3:23–34 begins with Jesus, Son of God, and traces back to Adam, son of God, emphasizing the Messiah came for all people. Although different, both genealogies trace Jesus’ lineage through Joseph.
I used to divide my introductory Bible class into two groups, one using only the Gospel of Matthew and the other using only the Gospel of Luke. Each group created a Nativity play based only on their Gospel. The results were always very revealing.
Harmonizing passages from the Gospels often diminishes the unique portrait of Jesus the Evangelists worked hard to create for their particular audiences. I do not conflate the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, having the wise men appear at the same time as the shepherds, etc. Sure, it creates problems with our family Nativity sets; but I take each Evangelist’s contributions seriously. For more information about the compositions of each Gospel, see Interpreting Biblical Literature (chapter 14), and for detailed studies of the Gospels’ unique depictions of Jesus, see Portraits of Jesus: An Inductive Approach to the Gospels.
Nativity Part 4: Confusion came from a second-century tale about Mary
Where did the common belief arise that Mary was nine months pregnant when she arrived in Bethlehem? Why do so many nativity scenes depict Joseph as an old man? Why is there a strong tradition that Jesus was born in a cave? And what about the donkey that Mary is consistently pictured as riding into Bethlehem? The earliest record of such details comes from a second-century document called “The Protevangelium of James” (The “Infancy Gospel of James”). The author wrote to glorify Mary with an elaborate account that makes her a famous person in Jerusalem. He was not content for the mother of Jesus to be merely a Palestinian peasant. That was not glorious enough for the mother of the Messiah. His imaginative story tells of Mary being born miraculously to elderly parents, Anna and Joachim. He writes that at age three Mary’s parents presented her to a priest at the Jerusalem temple and left her there to grow up in the very center of Jewish religious observance. She was the darling of all Jerusalem—a wonderfully pious girl. Everyone loved her.
In this story, Joseph is an old widower with children older than Mary. He is miraculously selected to care for Mary when she reaches the age of twelve and needs to leave the temple because she will soon begin to menstruate. Joseph assumes this responsibility only after complaining that he is elderly and people will laugh at him. The implication is that Joseph is too old to pose any threat to Mary’s virginity. As the story unfolds, Joseph is mortified when he discovers that Mary is pregnant. However, a miraculous sign shows that she is not lying about still being a virgin. In this extremely fanciful story, Joseph takes Mary to Bethlehem on a donkey, and as they approach the town the time comes for her to give birth. So he leaves her in a cave in the care of his sons and goes to find a midwife. As he returns to the cave, the earth stands still (“And I looked up at the vault of heaven, and saw it standing still and the birds of the heaven motionless” [18.2]). When he arrives with the midwife, a bright light fills the cave, and Jesus miraculously appears beside Mary. She did not actually give birth, so she remained a virgin. I will let you read how the midwife verifies Mary’s virginity and suffers for her lack of faith. It is pretty weird.
This strange story is easy to locate on-line by searching for “Protevangelium of James” (see, for example, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/infancyjames.html). As you read this fanciful account, reflect on the fact that it is the source of time-honored beliefs about Jesus’ birth. You may well find it to be a disturbing revelation. But keep in mind that the story of Jesus’ birth in Luke does not need to be supplemented by such imaginary details. [The next blog post briefly compares the accounts of Jesus’ birth given in Luke and Matthew and explains whey they are so different from each other.]
Cosby Cogitations 