Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom: Symbol and Metaphor in New Testament Interpretation

233 Pages·1976·15.717 MB·

by  Norman Perrin

Norman Perrin
~
JESUS
a nd th e
LANGUAGE
of the
KINGDO~I
Symbol and Met aphor in
New 'I (a nH.'nt In te:rp ion
C~ r{'C:\{
NORMAN PERRIN
Jesus and the
Language of the Kingdom
Symbol and Metaphor in New Testament Interpretation
FORTRESS PRESS
~
Philadelphia
Jesus and the
Language of the Kingdom
Biblical quotations from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible,
copyrighted 1946, 1952, © 1971, 1973 by the Division of Christian
Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the
U.S.A., are used by permission.
COPYRIGHT © 1976 BY FORTRESS PRESS
."'.' ''I'j' ~ '. .. ~ ,',:.~ .. .r
All rights"' reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
• L\ ibrary of CongJ ress Catal•o g Cm;d Number 75-13045
ISBN 0-8006-0412-1
5110G75 Printed in U.S.A. 1-412
To Amos Wilder and Paul Ricoeur
who taught me to look at the problem
of henneneutics in new ways
Table of Contents
Preface xi
I. Introduction 1
II. The Interpretation of Kingdom of God
in the Message of Jesus 15
A. Kingdom of God in the Ancient Jewish Literature 16
B. Kingdom of God in the Message of Jesus 32
1. The Scholarly Discussion of Kingdom of God
in the Message of Jesus 34
2. The Use of Kin.gdom of God
in the Message of Jesus 40
( a) The Kingdom Sayings 42
( b) The Lord's Prayer 47
( c) The Proverbial Sayings 48
( d) The, Parables 55
C. Kingdom of God in Christian Literature 56
1. An Interpretation of Kingdom
of God in Luke 17:20--37 57
2. The Use of Kingdom of God by Augustine 60
3. Johannes Weiss: The Thoroughgoing Historical
Understanding of Jesus' Proclamation of the
Kingdom of God 65
vii
viii Contents
4. Walter Rauschenbusch: A Modern
Acceptance of the Ancient Myth 70
5. Rudolf Bultmann: The Existentialist
Interpretation of Kingdom of God
in the Message of Jesus 71
III. The Modern Interpretation of the Parables of Jesus 89
A. Joachim Jeremias and the Historical Interpretation
of the Parables of Jesus 91
B. The "New Hermeneutic" and the Parables of Jesus 107
1. Ernst Fuchs:
The Parable as Sprachereignis 107
2. Eta Linnemann:
Jesus of the Parables 113
3. Eberhard Jungel:
Paulus und Jesus 117
4. The "New Herineneutic" and the
Parables of Jesus 120
C. Amos Wilder: Early Christian Rhetoric: The
Language of the Gospel 127
D. Robert W. Funk:
The Parable as Metaphor 132
E. Dan Otto Via, Jr.:
The Parable as Aesthetic Object 141
F. John Dominic Crossan:
The Parable as Poetic Metaphor 155
G. The SBL Parables Seminar 168
IV. The Kingdom of God and the Parables
of Jesus: Some Conclusions
194
A. The Message of the Historical Jesus 194
B. The Interpretation of Kingdom of God
in the Message of Jesus 197
Contents ix
c. The Interpretation of the Parables of Jesus 199
D. Simile, Metaphor, and Myth 202
E. The Final Element in the Act of Interpretation 203
Bibliography 209
Indexes 217
Preface
This volume began as an attempt to revise for book publication a
number of essays that I have published over the years on the Kingdom
of God, on the parables of Jesus, and on the problems of New Testa
ment hermeneutics. As I began to revise them, however, it became
evident that my own thinking on the various topics had developed
rapidly, especially in the years since about 1970, as Amos Wilder began
to influence me very strongly and I was in constant dialogue with Paul
Ricoeur. So it seemed better to rewrite than to revise, and the result is
this volume, the manuscript of which was written in a concentrated
period of time in December, 1974, and January, 1975.
A problem to be overcome in the writing of the manuscript was the
fact that the interpretation of Kingdom of God in the message of Jesus
and the interpretation of the parables are different but closely related
topics. So the scholar who writes about the Kingdom of God in the
message of Jesus must necessarily write about the parables, and vice
versa. Moreover, the scholar who reviews the discussion of the one will
also suddenly find himself reviewing the discussion of the other. I
could find no solution to this problem except to accept the necessity for
a certain amount of repetition. So the parables are discussed briefly in
the study devoted to the Kingdom, while C. H. Dodd and Joachim
Jeremias, who are equally important in the discussion of both the
Kingdom of God and the parables of Jesus, simply turn up in both
contexts. I have attempted to keep the element of repetition to a min
imum.
xi
xii Preface
A further problem was presented by the omnipresence of Rudolf
Bultmann in any discussion of Kingdom of God, of the parables, or of
the problem of hermeneutics. His own contributions to the related dis
cussions have been epoch-making, and his influence on other scholars
has been enormous. I was presented" with the choice of either writing a
special study of Bultmann and his work and influence, or of returning
to him at several different places in the manuscript. In the end I chose
the latter course, since it enabled me to discuss separately his her
meneutics in general (pages 10-12 below) and his particular inter
pretation of Kingdom of God in the message of Jesus (pages 71-80
below), and his influence on and response to the work of Ernst Fuchs
(pages 108-110 below), and, more briefly, his influence on the work of
Dan Via (pages 144-145 below). In each instance I am dealing with
Bultmann in the context of a particular aspect of the discussion and at
the same time gradually developing an overall view of his work and
influence. The reader whose concern is an overall view of Bultmann
and his work will be able to put together the separately presented
discussions.
A further special problem was that of nomenclature for the parables.
No two scholars use the same set of terms, and so I was faced with the
choice of either imposing my own terms on everyone else, or of allow
ing variety, e.g., Laborers in the Vineyard, Workers in the Vineyard, or
Vineyard' Workers. In the end I chose the latter course, and I have
given the cross references in the Index of Parables at the end of the
book.
It is my privilege now to offer my grateful thanks to all those who
have contributed to the work represented in these pages. I would
mention especially the two scholars to whom I have dedicated the.
volume, Amos Wilder and Paul Ricoeur, whose insights have been a
constant source of challenge and stimulation to me. Then, as always,
the community of scholars which is the Divinity School of the Univer
sity of Chicago has provided the essential context for the work I have
tried to do. In this instance I am particularly conscious of my debt to
David Tracy, who with Paul Ricoeur and myself conducted a seminar
on the hermeneutics of religious language in which much of the mate
rial developed here was first presented. Finally, and again as always,
the students at the University of Chicago have been very important to
me as I pursued the themes of these studies in constant discussion with