Table of Contents | Bernard Brandon Scott is a lay theologian and an internationally-known biblical scholar. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and St. Meinrad School of Theology in St. Meinrad, Indiana. He is currently the Darbeth Distinguished Professsor of New Testament at the Phillips Theological Seminary of the University of Tulsa. He is a senior fellow with the Jesus Seminar. His field of expertise is the New Testament and he has specialized in the parables. His first work is entitled Hear Then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus. A recent work is called Re-Imagine the World: An Introduction to the Parables of Jesus. His wide-ranging interests find expression in a book called Hollywood Dreams and Biblical Stories. The chapter in Profiles of Jesus continues his work and was published, originally, in The Fourth R. He is a recognized authority on the parables. What Scott writes is in keeping with the observations of Roy W. Hoover in his Introduction to Profiles of Jesus that "the value of this collection of profiles, in fact, lies in the opportunity to note the different strategies the contributors employ in their attempts to derive from the recovered 'artifacts' something like a credible sketch of Jesus as a historical figure, even if it does not and cannot constitute a claim to have reconstructed a view of 'the whole person' or an account of his whole life -- aims that are beyond the reach of a brief profile and also beyond the reach of the surviving evidence. The yield of these profiles is what can be characterized as a collection of studied impressions of Jesus as a figure of history." So what we have is one perspective or profile of Jesus as seen through the lens of Scott's interpretation of selected parables. His essay is a creative attempt to take two possible approaches to a profile and ask whether they "cohere" or "fit together" to represent a "consistent picture." As Hoover notes in the Introduction, the first challenge to be faced is to decide "how best to get a handle on the various 'artifacts' extracted from the texts of the gospels" Should one begin with the "deeds and events?" Or do the words of Jesus offer a more productive avenue as "the better place to begin?" Scott chooses a creative version that blends both of these approaches. This is more promising, according to Scott, because the more recent emphasis of Jesus research has stressed the deeds and has resulted in a "disappearance of parables," thus his title. Before he sets his work on page for the reader, he notes how E.P. Sanders, John P. Meier, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright dismiss or misuse parables. Because proverbs, aphoristic sayings and parables dominate the data base of Jesus sayings (turn to page 231 of Profiles of Jesus for the work of the Jesus Seminar concerning the data base that is reported in The Five Gospels) and, because the parables are a distinctive literary form without parallel in the day of Jesus, Scott proceeds to devise his "profile of Jesus." His distinctive approach is that he plans to use both words and deeds. Developing what he envisions as a model from surveying, he uses the work of the Jesus Seminar, particularly its attempt to rank the words of Jesus, and chooses parables and deeds accordingly. "To lay out a map, a surveyor establishes points and then coordinates those points. I have developed three different coordinates. Each coordinate is specified by a parable that provides the initial insight that allows me to sketch the general contour of that coordinate. I will expand the insight by relating various other sayings and deeds to form a coherent field for each coordinate. With each coordinate we are, in a sense, plotting an aspect of Jesus' map. By triangulating the three points, the whole map of what Jesus is about should come into view." Maybe, Jesus will look like a peasant Palestinian land surveyor. Let's see. His first coordinate is the parable of the leaven. Although it attracted the highest ranking of any parable in the voting of the Jesus Seminar, this parable hasn't figured strongly, according to Scott, in the reconstruction of the historical Jesus. After leading the reader through a sophisticated analysis of the parable (an analysis that takes its cue from a book of his teacher and colleague, Robert Funk in Jesus As Precursor), Scott concludes that the parable redefines the divine. In arriving at that conclusion, he notes how his interpretation of this parable converges with other items from the data base. "The divine is identified with the unclean, the impure." He sets this insight down as the starting point for his profile of Jesus. After a lengthy discussion of this coordinate, his summary concludes by asking, "What is one to do in a situation where leaven represents the Empire of God, when what goes into a person does not defile, where toll collectors go home acquitted, the poor are congratulated and home has disappeared?" Scott's second coordinate is the parable of the empty jar. He decides to use this parable even though it "barely made the list of authentic says of Jesus compiled by the Jesus Seminar." Nonetheless, he argues that it "makes an important point." The convergence of other material is set before the reader. His conclusion is that this parable fills out "aspects of the profile intimated in the Leaven. Like leaven it identifies the Empire of God with the marginalized, the female, the unclean." His third coordinate is the parable that he prefers to call "From Jerusalem to Jericho," not "the Good Samaritan." It received a very high vote of confidence from the Jesus Seminar. Scott argues that it is about cooperation, not competition. The Jewish world envisioned interpersonal relations on the basis of an "agonistic contest." This parable "re-imagines human relationships apart from the agonistic contest," he asserts. Cooperation, not competition, is the basis for human social structure in the Empire of God. He includes a lengthy discussion of material that converges with his insight, about children in God's domain, about re-envisioned family, about Abba as a metaphor for God to re-interpret Father, about how the parable of the vineyard laborers undercuts a hierarchically arranged social order, about case law used to re-image social relations, etc. Scott contends that the world "implied in these three coordinates re-imagines a community's social experience." The Empire of God is at the core of this re-imagining that Jesus does. The re-imagining includes a redefinition of family, of God in a non-patriarchal world and of social relations. His summary of this coordinate claims that the Empire of God is the presiding symbol and it functions to create through the imagination a sphere in which those who are part of this community of envisioning can experience healing, the hospitality of the unclean and the presence of God in God's non-empirical activity. As a social community wherein peasants accept each other, reject the perspective that they are in agonistic conflict with each other and reach out to enemies, a real threat to Rome's rule is posed. Scott moves on to raise the question of why Jesus opted for such a radical program. Confessing that there is a paucity of data, he notes how social sciences have provided a way to understand why Jesus made such a choice. But this approach isn't satisfying for Scott. What such an approach does explain is why the Empire of Rome was such an unstable society and why the Jews revolted. "What no social model can explain," Dr. Scott argues, "is why an individual decides to revolt. Social sciences deal with social groups, not individuals." Therefore, he looks in the direction of an "impressive and controversial study" by Frank Sulloway called Born to Rebel, Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives. After a summary of the thrust of Sulloway's book, he concludes that latter-born birth rank, absence of a father and conflict with the family would put Jesus in the group most inclined to support a radical response. The data he uses to come to this conclusion includes James as his elder b rother, the absence of Joseph from the stories in the gospels and known conflict described in Mark and Luke. At first it looks like Professor Scott is prepared to "profile" Jesus as a political revolutionary. But, he takes the road less traveled by recent scholarship and argues that Jesus, the oral storyteller, used parable as the avenue to revolt. Life lived in the Empire of Rome was oppressive and destructive of the life Jesus envisioned. Scott concludes, then, that "Jesus...seems to me closer to a poet." With Seamus Heaney in The Redress of Poetry, Scott concludes that the poet "must then submit to the strain of bearing witness in his or her own life to the place of consciousnesss established in the poem," in this case, the parable. He sees poetry and parable as redress because it "envisions a reality that can only be imagined" but has a "gravitational pull" on the historical situation. So it was that Jesus offered an "alternative" to the world in which the Jewish peasant was trapped. Jesus' revolt was in parable and "the parables create a counter-world." Scott argues that the Empire of God is that counter-world, a vision utterly intolerable for the Empire of Rome! His astounding and incredible conclusion says hope has the power to create a counter-reality to the Empire of Rome. He turns to Vaclav Havel for a potent word as the end of his "profile" of Jesus as a poet. What Havel has to say, in Disturbing the Peace, about hope explains how parables and the Empire of God functioned as a revolutionary symbol for Jesus and his followers. "Hope," he says, "transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." For this reviewer the chapter by Bernard Brandon Scott sketches a "profile of Jesus" that is mesmerizing and captivating! Although I have been catching distant glimpses and glimmers of this Jesus for years, he introduces Jesus as subversive poet, a new insight for me, and this "profile" makes him ever more compelling. Because of him and his vision of a counter-world, I have learned that grace is at the heart of reality in that counter-world. Thus, I am on a perpetual journey to the heart of an unreachable destination, believing that life is journey in the counter-world and destination is in the hands of the merciful Mystery. |