Hard to believe . . . Frederick Douglass section is finished!

Frederick Douglass

It's hard to believe that I have already finished another section of the book. It's about Frederick Douglass's interpretations of the parables, which will be in Chapter 4. The section is way too long--no surprise there--4200 words, instead of 2000 or under, but Douglass's words are so powerful that it is very difficult to trim anything.

I will write more about him in the future, but his use of the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus develops over the years (his last citations are used to advocate for women's suffrage), and here is one interesting example adapted from the book draft:

After the fall of Richmond, Virginia, on April 4, 1865—Abraham Lincoln would be shot on April 14—Douglass delivered an address in Boston that celebrated Richmond’s capture. Douglass begins by noting:

I, for the first time in my life, have the assurance, not only of a country redeemed, of a country regenerated, but of my race free and having a future in this land . . . . I say we have in the fall of Richmond the fall of this terrible rebellion and the upbuilding of liberty through the Southern States (4.71).

Douglass rejoices, because now he and other blacks are citizens (emphasis his; 4.72): “What I want, now that the black men are citizens in war, is, that they shall be made fully and entirely, all over this land, citizens in peace” (4.73). And then Douglass once again evokes the parable of the Rich Man (traditionally called Dives) and Lazarus to explain the current historical situation. This time, the audience definitely responds appropriately to the use of “Abraham”:

I tell you, the negro is coming up—he is rising—rising. Why, only a little while ago we were the Lazaruses if the South; the Dives of the South was the slaveholder; and how singular it is that we have here another illustration of that Scripture! Once there was a certain rich man who fared sumptuously every day, and was arrayed in purple and fine linen. He came North, clothed in silk and in satin, and shining with gold, and his breast sparkling with diamonds—his table loaded with the good things of the world. And a certain Lazarus sat at his gate, desiring the crumbs that fell from his table. Such was the record. But now a change has taken place. That rich man is lifting up his eyes in torments down there, and seeing Lazarus afar off in Abraham’s bosom (tumultuous laughter and applause), is all the time calling on Father Abraham to send Lazarus back. But Father Abraham says, “If they hear not Grant nor Sherman, neither will they be persuaded though I send Lazarus unto them.” (Prolonged and vociferous applause.) I say we are way up yonder now, no mistake (4.73-74).

The audience laughs uproariously because, of course, Douglass equates the Abraham of the Bible/parable with President Abraham Lincoln. 

The book will trace the fascinating trajectory of Douglass's use of this parable and of the parade of the Good Samaritan.

Okay, the next post will resume the series on John Calvin and the parables. 

John Calvin (1509–1564)

I must confess that I was not a big fan of John Calvin. After reading his Institutes of the Christian Religion many years ago, I was impressed by his brilliance but unconvinced by many aspects of his theology.

I gained a great deal of appreciation for Calvin, however, after reading some of his commentaries, beginning with his commentary on James. His interpretations are insightful if not brilliant. In his James commentary, for example, I especially appreciated Calvin's refusal to domesticate James's sayings about the wealthy and the poor (e.g., the "plain, decent folk," the "humble and obscure," and so forth). Calvin's commentaries are still well worth reading.

Although the focus in this blog is on the parables, I want to begin with a brief introduction to Calvin for those who need it:   

John Calvin was a pre-eminent Reformed theologian and biblical interpreter. He was born in Noyon, France, and, according to his father’s wishes, was educated in Paris. He initially studied theology, with a view toward a career in the service of the church, but in 1528, he instead started to study law at Orleans and Bourges. After a “sudden conversion,” to which he briefly alludes in the preface to his commentary on the Psalms, he changed course and eventually was no longer “obstinately devoted to the superstitions of Popery” (Preface to the Commentary on the Psalms). Calvin fled Paris in 1533 and France in 1534, due to a threat of persecution against Protestants, and he arrived in Basel in 1535. After publishing the first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536, he was offered a position as a lecturer and preacher in Geneva, where he stayed for the rest of his life, except for a three-year exile as a pastor to the French congregation in Strasbourg (1538-41; CCEL). Calvin returned to Geneva in 1541 and began working to establish his vision of the church and commonwealth in Geneva, where everyone is dedicated equally to the glory and service of God, but where both church and state had different areas of responsibility. 

Calvin’s influential commentaries on biblical books reflect include rhetorical, philological, and historical insights, and, in many ways, anticipate a historical-critical approach. The commentaries include references to philosophers, orators, poets, historians, and rhetoricians, as well as previous and contemporary interpreters of Scripture. Calvin believes that an interpreter should ascertain the “original” meaning of the text—in its literary and historical contexts—before applying the text to contemporary life (see McKim 2007: 291). In addition, Calvin believes that the “chief excellency of an expounder consists in lucid brevity” and the exegetical task is “to lay open the mind of the writer whom he undertakes to explain, the degree in which he leads away his readers from it, in that degree he goes astray from his purpose, and in a manner wanders from his own boundaries” (“The Epistle Dedicatory” to Romans; CCEL).

Calvin’s Commentary on the Harmony of the Three Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, and Luke (1555) was the last commentary on the New Testament that he wrote. This commentary provided an opportunity for Calvin to explore both how parables should be interpreted as well as the more basic questions as to why Jesus spoke in parables in the first place:

Now though parables are generally found to illustrate the subject of which they treat, yet the uninterrupted course of a metaphor may lead to obscurity. So then Christ, in delivering this parable, intended to wrap up, in an allegory, what he might have said more plainly and fully, without a figure. But now that the exposition is added, the figurative discourse has greater energy and force than if it had been simple: by which is meant, that it is not only fitted to produce a more powerful impression on the mind, but is also more clear. So highly important is the manner in which any thing is said.

The next post will introduce a bit more about Calvin's perspective on the parables and investigate what he has to say about the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. 

Two more sections of the book completed!

Work on the reception history of the parables book has been going very well. Today I completed two sections, both of which are about modern New Testament scholars. I had been working on them for a few days but wrapped them both up tonight. They are:

Adolf Jülicher (in Chapter 4): This was an easy choice. Modern scholarly research on the parables essentially began with Jülicher’s first edition of Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, the most famous and influential scholarly book on the parables ever written. At the very least, this book set the scholarly agenda for a very, very long time.

David Flusser (Chapter 5): This choice is not as obvious. Flusser was professor of early Christianity and Second Temple Judaism at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His work, including a book on Jesus originally published in 1968, played a role in the growing recognition within modern scholarship that Jesus and his parables should be interpreted in the context of first-century Judaism. Flusser's work on the parables was also significant for interpretations of Jesus' parables in light of the rabbinic meshalim as well as Greek fables (e.g., his Die rabbinischen Gleichnisse und der Gleichniserzähler Jesus).

I included sections about both scholars in my What Are They Saying about the Parables? book (2000), which aided the writing of these two sections for the new book. The research for this book, however, also involved quite a bit of reading of their works that are as of yet untranslated into English, which slowed things down a bit (Die Arbeit ging langsam).

The third New Testament scholar I am including in the book is Elsa Tamez (also in Chapter 5), but I wrote that section in mid-December.

Tomorrow I will begin a series of posts on John Calvin's interpretations of the parables, taken primarily from his commentary, A Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark, & Luke.

Another Rich Fool image; Thanks; and Progress on the Book

The Rich Fool

Three quick things in this post:

First, the above image is another one that my Honors Seminar student is having difficulty finding enough information on. In addition, the quality of the image/file size makes it impossible to enlarge so that we can read the text on the painting itself (unlike the previous image, in which the Greek is easy to see). The image is found here. If you have information that would be helpful to her (my student), please email me (or comment below).

Second, I want to thank the people who graciously responded to the request in the previous post. Two people have been especially helpful: Ralph (Zosimas) Sidway, "Webservant for Christ the Savior-Holy Spirit Orthodox Church": http://www.christthesavioroca.org and Dr. Bruce Beck, Assistant Professor of New Testament, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, and Director, Pappas Patristic Institute.

Third, I want to report progress on my own book since the last update. I have finished sections on both the hymnwriter (lyricist) Fanny Crosby and the great novelist Leo Tolstoy. To keep the sections within the word limits, I focused on four hymns by Crosby and on one short story by Tolstoy ("Where Love Is, God Is"). Very fun sections to write.

Today--a snow day in Atlanta--I am doing some college work, but I am also writing about Adolf Jülicher. His Die Gleichnisreden Jesu (The Parables of Jesus; it's not translated from the German) is the most famous and influential scholarly book on the parables ever written. This afternoon I am reworking a section from my What Are They Saying about the Parables? about Jülicher to include in this new book (I received permission from Paulist Press to do so).

Since my first parables book was about modern scholars, I am only including three modern scholars in this much broader reception history of the parables book with Baker Academic. David Flusser and Elsa Tamez will be the other modern scholars I will include in this book.

Orthodox Image of the Rich Fool Parable: A student's request for more information

Orthodox Image of the Rich Fool Parable

One of the students in my Honors Seminar is working on the parable of the Rich Fool. She currently is exploring five images of the parable, and she is having some difficulty locating very much information about two of them.

The first image is above; it is an Orthodox icon of the parable of the Rich Fool ("The Parable of the Rich Man who celebrated the Crops"). Note the building of the barns on the left, the rich man dying on the right, and the rich man again in the center (one of the web sites argues that this image is of Jesus).

The image is found on at least two web sites (e.g., here and here), but my student has had no luck in gathering further information about the image.

If anyone reading this blog has more information about this image or ideas about the best places for her to look for more information (she also is working with a couple research librarians), please email me (dgowler@emory.edu). She would be very grateful (and would, if you wish, reference you in her project, which will be online later this semester).

With many thanks for any information about the image that you could share.

Honors Seminar update

Oxford College of Emory University Library

The Honors Seminar is going extremely well. Students have been exploring various receptions of "their" parable and have decided which reception on which to focus for the first major section of their project. Here are some examples:

The Rich Fool: the focus will be on five striking images representing the parable, including a mural from a monastery on Mt. Tabor, two modern representations--one from the U.S. and one from Kazakhstan--and others resembling Orthodox icons. The student will investigate personal and cultural contexts, the amount of guidance as far as how the representation is "guided"--from monologic to dialogic--and the "rhetorical effect of these images.

Workers in the Vineyard: The focus is on the history of reception in one of its "trajectories," that is, through the interpretations of early Christians like Irenaeus on through interpretations in the Islamic hadith. The allegorical interpretations have a fascinating history and development, and a detailed analysis of the texts yields much insight as well. The Muslim texts have a great amount of continuity and discontinuity with early Christian interpretations. 

Talents: The focus on this project's initial section is on two 17th Dutch images: an etching by Jan Luyken and a painting by Willem de Poorter, placing the works in the context of both the artists' and the historical (in a variety of ways) contexts. 

Rich Man and Lazarus: The focus in the initial part of the project is on a ballad on the parable that was licensed by "Master John Wallye" and "Mistress Toye" in 1557/58. The "genealogy" of the ballad, including a previous Latin one, will be part of the focus, as will a detailed exegesis of both lyrics and music.

Ouch: first draft of Chapter 3 is ~38,000 words

I just finished working through this text by Roger Williams

Good news and bad news about the book:

The good news is that I finished the first draft of Chapter 3. The bad news is that the first draft is approximately 38,000 words, and it needs to be under 20,000 words.

Here are the sections and their approximate word count:

Martin Luther (4800)
Anna Jansz (2250)
John Calvin (4825)
John Maldonatus (3025)
Shakespeare (4150)
Domenico Fetti (2000)
George Herbert (3600)
Roger Williams (3100)
Rembrandt (3603)
John Bunyan (6420)

I have already eliminated the section on William Tyndale I was planning to include, but I still have a lot of painful cutting to do for the book, especially in this chapter. This is the longest chapter so far, and it has the fewest sections (10). Chapter 1 has 13 sections, and Chapter 2 has 11-12 (John Gower may go completely).

I primarily blame John Bunyan for the wordiness of this chapter (partly kidding).

Chapter 4 is in focus now. I have completed the sections on William Blake and John Everett Millais, and I am currently working on two sections (Fanny Crosby and Leo Tolstoy).  I also have gathered the resources I need to write about Soren Kierkegaard, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, Adolf Julicher, Charles Spurgeon, and Amos Bronson Alcott. 

About half of Chapter 5 is written: Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Hart Benton, parables and the Blues, Elsa Tamez, and Octavia Butler. I plan to write sections about the Dalai Lama, David Flusser, and Howard Thurman but have not decided on the remaining sections (perhaps Rilke, probably some art from Africa, and maybe an excerpt from a recent film).

I also have the materials to write a section on some of the parable reception in the hadith. 

Back to work . . . .