Fanny Crosby (1820-1915) and the Parables (part 1)

Fanny Crosby (1820-1915)

I am please about the diversity of music that I have been able to include in the book. Chapter 1 includes a discussion of a kontakion by Romanos the Melodist, the great Byzantine poet and hymn writer. One of the topics in Chapter 3 is Anna Jansz, who is immortalized in the 18th Hymn of the Ausbund. Chapter 5 has a discussion about the blues song, “The Prodigal Son,” by Robert Wilkins and also delves into the relationship between blues music in general and the Prodigal Son parable.

In Chapter 4 I have a discussion of the famous lyricist/hymn writer Fanny Crosby, and I discovered that some of her lyrics incorporated parables in ways that are more complex than they first appear. So let me offer some insights into her work and the parables in the next few posts:

Frances Jane (Fanny) Crosby wrote lyrics for over 8000 hymns, which makes her in all likelihood the most pro­lif­ic hymn­ist in his­to­ry. Crosby became blind as an infant, which her family attributed to incompetent medical care for an inflammation of the eyes. Although she could perceive some light, Crosby remained blind for the rest of her ninety-five years.

Crosby entered the New York Institution for the Blind in 1835, and, because of her talent, soon became a spokesperson for the school. In 1844, for example, along with other students from the Institution, she spoke to a group of dignitaries—including members of the U. S. House and Senate. She recited some of her poems and sought to enlist their support for the blind and other disabled persons. Her poems were also published in such magazines as Saturday Evening Post, and she published her first book of poetry in 1844, The Blind Girl and Other Poems, a book that served primarily as a fund-raising vehicle for the Institution (Blumhofer 2005: 62-65; Aufdemberge 1997: 675)

After graduation, Crosby served on the school’s faculty from 1847-1858, where she met and became friends with a young Grover Cleveland, who taught at the school, served as secretary to the superintendent, and often took dictation of Crosby’s poetry (Blumhofer 2005: 87). Crosby began attending revivals at Methodist Broadway Tabernacle, and in the fall of 1850 had a dramatic religious experience, the culmination of which occurred during the fifth stanza of Isaac Watts’s hymn, “Alas and Did My Saviour Bleed?” (Ruffin 1976: 68).

Crosby left the Institution for the Blind in 1858, when she married Alexander van Alstyne, and the couple moved to an economically disadvantaged area of Lower Manhattan so they could contribute their “superfluous” money to others and work in rescue missions. After Alexander’s death in 1902, Crosby moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she lived until her death in 1915. One of her last public appearances was at Carnegie Hall in New York City at the age of 91 (Aufdemberge 1997: 675).

 

Adolf Jülicher and the parables (part 4)

Adolf Jülicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu

What about the relationship of Jesus’s parables to his teaching of the kingdom of God? To place Jülicher’s work in context, biblical studies in this era were dominated by the “social liberalism” of Albert Ritschl and Adolf von Harnack. Ritschl believed in an evolutionary kingdom of God, one in which Jesus gave human beings responsibility to create a new society here on earth that would be fulfilled by an eternal kingdom after death. Human beings, in response to the rule of the kingdom in their hearts, were to work to establish God’s kingdom on earth. Ritschl, therefore, interprets the “parables of growth” in this evolutionary way: the Growing Seed (Mk 4:26-29) portrays the seed of Jesus’ teaching as it was sown in the first century. It would grow and come to fulfillment in history as a result of human beings’ response and faithfulness to the redemptive activity of God in Christ and of the human activity made possible by God’s action (Riches 1993: 15-16). As Joachim Jeremias notes, Jülicher’s Jesus also is an “apostle of progress” (Apostel des Fortschritts; II.483) who teaches the moral precepts that encourage human beings in their quest to bring about God’s kingdom on earth (Jeremias 1972: 19). Other scholars such as Johannes Weiss, however, argue that Jesus’s message of the kingdom was apocalyptic: Jesus was an eschatological prophet who proclaimed the imminent end of the world. The kingdom of God is wholly future, and human beings could do nothing to bring about its end; they could only prepare for its imminent arrival. Weiss also believed that many parables had nothing whatsoever to do with the kingdom of God, and he rejected the parables as a reliable source for Jesus’s understanding of the kingdom (Weiss 1971: 60-64; Gowler 2000: 86-87).

Jülicher attempted to remove the allegorical accretions in the Gospel parables and situate the parables in concrete situations in the life and ministry of Jesus, who uttered them in a particular context and in response to particular challenges: “Jesus’s parables were designed to make an immediate effect, children of the moment, deeply immersed in the particularity of the present moment” (Jülicher 1963: I.91). Parables are not riddles; they are self-evident and do not need to be explained (Jones 1964: 17). Yet in stripping away all traces of allegory, Jülicher’s interpretations of the parables, since they focused on one single idea, often with the most broad application, are often bland generalities: The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, for example, was supposed to produce joy (Freude) in a life of suffering, and to inculcate fear (Furcht) of a life of wealth and pleasure (Jülicher 1963: II.638). Likewise, the parable of the Unjust Steward encourages its hearers to make wise use of the present to ensure a happy future (II.511).

Scholars since Jülicher have noted the groundbreaking nature of his work, but many have pointed to weaknesses in his approach. Do parables always have one point, and is there an “essential” (wesentlich; I.52) difference between simile and metaphor? Many have answered no to both those questions. Even Aristotle’s Rhetoric, on which Jülicher depended, notes: “The simile also is a metaphor; the difference is but slight” (Rhetoric III.4). In addition, Jülicher was criticized for being too dependent upon Aristotle and not appreciative enough of the Jewish context of Jesus and his parables (e.g., see the discussion of David Flusser in Chapter 5 of my forthcoming book). Some recent scholars suggest that Jesus’s parables can include allegory or even be allegorical, so they contest Jülicher’s rigorous exclusion of allegorical elements in the original parables of Jesus. It is true, however, that post-Jülicher scholars would never completely resuscitate the allegorical method.

Book progress (9/13/2015)

Work on the book continues, even with the increased demands at the college/university. I have finished another round of editing, and this time I wrote the bibliography as I edited, so it feels like I am even closer to finishing the book.

Tonight I began writing introductions to each of the chapters, and I also have an outline and have started writing the Introduction to the whole book.

It's also time to send a draft of the book to one or more colleagues to get their feedback. I began that process as well this weekend. 

I feel good about the progress and also about what I have written so far. It's good to be on the home stretch, because the next book project is almost ready to go.

Again, this blog has been a help to completing the book, not a hindrance. I hope it has been and will continue to be helpful to those who read it.

Adolf Jülicher and the Parables (part 3)

Adolf Jülicher

Jülicher explores the form and nature of parables and, depending primarily on Aristotle’s Rhetoric (III.4), argues that parables are similes not metaphors. Metaphors are indirect enigmatic speech that say one thing but mean another; they can remain incomprehensible without proper context and interpretation. An example borrowed from Aristotle, “A lion rushed on” (der Löwe stürmt los), can function as a metaphor for “Achilles rushed on,” depending on the context. Metaphors thus easily and naturally extend into allegories, something that Jülicher argues Jesus never used.

Similes, though, are direct, simple, and self-explanatory speech, such as the clear comparison also used by Aristotle: “Achilles rushed on like a lion” (der löwenmutige Achill stürmt los; I.52). Jülicher concludes that Jesus used similes and that they develop into three categories:

1. Similitude (Gleichnis): A similitude reflects a typical or recurring event in daily life, and it has two components—the “picture” (image part: Bildhälfte) created by the story and the “object” (or reality part: Sachhälfte) contained in in the story. The details of the similitude merely provide a colorful context for the “picture” the “object/reality” portrayed, and a single point of comparison (the tertium comparationis) connects the two parts with a “like” or “as.” The similitude’s tertium comparationis challenges its readers with the necessity of either forming a judgment or making a decision (I.58-80). The saying about the children playing in the marketplace (Matt. 11:16-19; Luke 7:31-34), the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin (Matt. 18:12-14; Luke 15:3-10), and the Growing Seed (Mark 4:26-29) are all similitudes.

2. Parable or Fable (Parabel; Fabel): The parable is a fictional story that has all of the attributes of a similitude and functions the same way. The “resemblance” in the parable refers readers to an external reality; it is different from a similitude in that the parable is a story that takes place in the past. Jülicher considers this form to be a fable, but since fables are often confused with stories that involve animals, he prefers the term parable (I.92-111). The majority of Jesus’s parables, Jülicher adds, are fables similar to the fables attributed to Stesichoros or Aesop. The Workers in the Vineyard (Matt. 20:1-15), Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), and Sower (Matt. 13:1-9; Mark 4:1-9; Luke 8:4-8) are all parables, although the parable of the Sower’s allegorical interpretation does not stem from Jesus.

3. Example Story (Beispielerzählung): An example story is also a fictional narrative—like the parable—but it differs from the similitude and the parable because it actually illustrates the reality/truth it is meant to demonstrate; it doesn’t just refer to an external reality (I.112-115). Jülicher only lists four example stories from the Gospels: the Good Samaritan, Rich Fool, the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the Pharisee and the Publican. The distinctive feature of this type is that they present examples that are supposed to be emulated by others. The Good Samaritan, for instance, is an example story, because it illustrates the moral principle of loving one’s neighbor. God esteems loving compassion, so even a despised Samaritan demonstrates through his compassion what it means to be a neighbor in contrast to the priest and Levite (II.596). Thus all the allegorical interpretations by people like Origen completely miss the point: The injured man does not symbolize Adam, the Samaritan does not denote Jesus, the inn does not designate the church, Jerusalem does not symbolize paradise, and Jericho does not denote “the world.” Attempts to find symbolism in such elements are doomed to fail because details like Jerusalem and Jericho are only used to give local color to this example story. Instead, Jülicher contends, interpreters should focus on the one basic point of comparison—the neighborly actions of the Samaritan—to understand the meaning of the parable as Jesus intended it: the compassion we should have for our fellow human being  (II.585-598).

The problem, for Jülicher, is that a parable’s pictorial elements (Bildhälfte) must be understood literally (eigentlich), whereas the pictorial elements of an allegory must be understood figuratively (uneigentlich), and “this contrast allows no mixing of forms” (I.76). The parables, after they have been examined and restored to the form taught by Jesus, are “masterpieces of popular eloquence” that are “wholly unpretentious” and give their readers an overpowering feeling of the exalted nature of Jesus: “as far as we know, nothing higher and more perfect has ever been accomplished in this area” (Kümmel 1972: 187).

Review of Charles Hedrick's The Wisdom of Jesus

For those interested, my review of Charles Hedrick's The Wisdom of Jesus: Between the Sages of Israel and the Apostles of the Church has just been published in the Review of Biblical Literature: (with a link here as well; the image above comes from the second RBL link).

There is a significant section on the parables of Jesus that may be of interest to readers of this blog.

Adolf Jülicher and the Parables (part 2)

Jülicher sets out to prune the allegorical overgrowth found in the gospel versions of the parables. Thus he assumes not only that such an allegorical overgrowth exists—some clearly does—but that scholars armed with proper sets of shears and trained eyes can pare back the allegorical overgrowth in the gospels to uncover the parables of Jesus as he spoke them, thus uncovering more authentic elements of Jesus’s teachings. Jülicher finds that Jesus used parables to “illustrate the unfamiliar by the commonly familiar, to guide gently upwards from the easy to the difficult” (1963 I.146). Jesus’s “original” parables are not allegorical, not meant to obscure his message, not (intentionally) created to be difficult puzzles to solve, and do not serve as stumbling blocks for “outsiders” (cf. Mark 4:11-12). Instead, the parables as told by Jesus before they were distorted by the Gospel authors are always straightforward discourse (immer eigentliche Rede) in clear language that is “meant to inform, clarify, and persuade” (McKim 2007: 586). Jülicher declares:

So far as I see, we cannot escape explaining the meaning and understanding of the evangelists [gospel authors] as a misunderstanding of the essence of Jesus’ parables. The difference can be expressed as follows: According to the theory of the evangelists, the “parables” are allegories, and therefore figurative discourse that to some extent requires translation, while in fact they are—or, we should say, they were, before they came into the hands of zealous redactors—something very different: parables, fables, example paradigmatic stories, but always literal discourse (Kümmel 1972: 187; emphasis in the original: Jülicher 1963: I.49).

Jülicher thus argues that despite the fact that centuries of interpreters had considered the parables of Jesus to be allegories—including the gospel authors themselves—the evidence points to Jesus’ parables not being allegorical (1963 I.61).