But not all facts are on this level. What does it mean when there is something like an “earthquake” in politics?—when, for example, a social landslide occurs or a political scandal becomes public? What does it mean when a politician is toppled—and no one wants to take responsibility? What is the fact here? What really happened, and what were only sham maneuvers staged for the public? What was mere opinion making, and what was deliberate disinformation?
Political events require interpretation, and a great deal more interpretation than purely physical phenomena. What really happened must be painstakingly researched, analyzed, and interpreted. But the recovery of the course of events always involves interpretation from the very start. Beyond all these difficulties there is ultimately also the question: who is the authoritative interpreter? And which interpretation will triumph in the end? Hence the quandary: is there any such thing as pure fact when the real actors are people, with their desires, interests, and passions? Is it not true that here every fact that appears is already bathed in interpretation from the outset, drenched in it through and through?
Jesus was apparently interpreted from the first moment of his appearance and in entirely different ways. There was the initially tentative but still believing interpretation of those who followed him. This culminated in the confession: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:16). Then there was the interpretation, quite ambivalent in many respects, by those who did not follow him but went out to see him, many of whom apparently thought he was the Baptizer returned or one of the earlier prophets (Matt 16:14). And finally there was the aroused reaction of his opponents, who were sure that he was driving out demons with the aid of the head demon (Mark 3:22). Interpretations, then, from the outset: which was correct? It is unavoidable, at the beginning of this book, to delve more fully into the relationship between “fact” and “interpretation.”
The So-Called News
Let us begin with what appears to be the simplest kind of question: what is the nature of the facts communicated to us by the media? When a young person begins to read the newspaper seriously, or starts to gather information from news broadcasts, she or he may still believe that all the events in the world can be summarized in the daily news. Perhaps one might even be as nave and innocent as Count Bobby, of whom it is said that one day he observed, quite astonished: “What a good thing it is that every day just enough happens in the world to fill a whole newspaper.” But one day we awake from our childish faith that the events of the world can be adequately summed up in the daily news. At some point every critical newspaper reader, radio listener, television viewer, or internet user realizes that the media can only relate a tiny section of what is really happening in the world.
The “news,” for example, that reaches newspaper readers in the United States or Germany, or those who are faithful followers of the nightly news is, from a purely geographical point of view, extremely limited. Lands like Burma or Burundi, Togo or Tanzania only appear occasionally in our media. What is presented to us as news from within our shores is in itself a profoundly limited selection. And what do we hear about our own country? We get what amounts to an excess of partisan quarrels and assessments of the social or economic situation, much of it in the form of statements prepared in cabinet departments, party headquarters, or the offices of interest groups. Then comes the “cultural” sector, where nearly every segment reflects the subjective opinion of the correspondent carried to an extreme. After that we get sports, which in Germany means mostly soccer, in the United States football, basketball, baseball, and maybe hockey. Then there are the usual sensational stories that are to the media like spice in the stew: news of terrorist acts, murders, robberies, rapes, affairs, explosions, mine disasters, fires, weather crises, plane crashes. And finally there are those stories that always seem a little odd, on the model of “man bites dog.”
News programs of this sort are an unimaginably tiny and often subjective slice of reality. For what makes up the reality of world events is not first of all scurrilous doings, World Cup contests, accidents, and political quarrels, and not just movements in the social network and the economy.
Where do the real changes happen in the world?—the things that move peoples to the depth of their souls?—the things that petrify them or drive them forward?—that will incite this or that revolution or prevent it?—that destroy dreams or bestow new hope? Does any of that show up in the news? Can it be adequately shown?
A British computer scientist supposedly fed three hundred million so-called facts into a machine he programmed, nicely named “True Knowledge.” He wanted to find out which was the most boring day of the twentieth century. The computer found it: it was April 11, 1954. On that day, supposedly, nothing important happened: no famous person was born; no celebrity died; nothing exploded; no war broke out; no house collapsed.2
The way the media think is clearly revealed in this absurd computer game: an event has to be something that shrieks, stinks, or explodes. Incidentally, April 11, 1954, was a Palm Sunday. In case it might have been that on that day even a few thousand believers took the beginning of Holy Week and the entry of Jesus into his city so much into their hearts that their lives were somehow changed, then on that day a great deal happened, and it was very important indeed.
The So-Called Fact
So the question we have already hinted at finally comes to the fore: what is a historical fact, after all? We are all too ready to speak of facts, realities, true reality, actual events, undeniable facts. For a while now, politicians have been wont to say, “The fact is that.…”
But what is a “fact”? How does something become a “fact”? Anyone who says “such-and-such is a fact” has already selected it from the endless stream of events, isolated it from the chaos of confused and interwoven sequences, sharply outlined it, and so already given it a conceptual label and interpretation. In other words: even the so-called pure fact, even the “naked reality” always arises out of an interpretive probe into reality.
Every “fact” has to be shaped into language and communicated (with paintings or films representing peripheral language phenomena). But to the extent that a “fact” becomes language it has already entered into a very particular horizon of understanding, into the broad field of preunderstanding. Interpretation has already begun one stage earlier. It starts with the reception of external sense impressions in our brain. Already, to a scarcely imaginable degree, there has been a process of selection, division, sorting, organizing, cataloging—and all this with the aid of models of experience that our brain has been constantly accumulating since we were embryos.
One Day in Capernaum
But so that I do not lose myself in a discussion of the theory of knowledge let me illustrate what I have said through the gospels—more precisely, through Mark 1:21-39. In this pericope, very close to the beginning of Mark’s gospel, we read the following:
They went to Capernaum, and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? You have come to destroy us. I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
That evening, at sunset, they brought to him
all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring villages, so that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons. (Mark 1:21-39)
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We see immediately that this is a careful composition: everything takes place in Capernaum, and only in the last sentence does the event extend beyond that town.
It is not only the unity of place that is maintained throughout but the unity of time as well: the action begins on a Sabbath morning with the worship service in the synagogue. Jesus—still in the synagogue—heals a possessed person and then, with several disciples, goes to Peter’s house, where he heals Peter’s mother-in-law. On the Sabbath evening, as soon as it is permissible to carry sick people, a great crowd assembles outside the door of the house. Jesus heals many of them and then remains in Peter’s house for the night. Early in the morning he leaves the house and prays in a retired place. The composition thus extends from the morning of the Sabbath to the morning of the following day. The individual events are carefully connected, especially by the “immediately” (“just then,” “as soon as”) that is so typical of Mark.
There is also an internal unity in what happens during this one day: Jesus’ mighty deeds fill the whole of it. First he frees from possession, then from a feverish illness. First a man is healed, then a woman. In the evening the whole thing is expanded: now many are healed, some from possession and some from other illnesses.
Another motif that dominates the whole composition is Jesus’ authoritative “teaching.” The participants in the worship service are astounded at his way of interpreting Scripture. This authoritative attitude of Jesus is then linked directly to his power over demons. The people of Capernaum say, after the possessed man is healed: “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” At the end, then, in the final verse of the composition, the combination of powerful teaching and mastery over demons appears again, now summarized as “proclaiming.”
But we should not look only at the structural lines of the composition. We must also appreciate the overall mood: Mark depicts a fully rounded day replete with holiness. It is certainly a day near the beginning of Jesus’ activity. It is an example of many other days. It can be no accident that it is a Sabbath, for that means it is a day on which creation, according to the biblical idea, arrives at its perfection.
Of course, we cannot exclude the possibility that within the time of Jesus’ public activity this one day, with all the events depicted, actually happened. That is certainly possible. But it is more probable that Mark here artistically distributed several pieces of tradition over a single day. He arranged disparate memories in such a way as to produce a full day’s happenings—including the night that followed. He describes a day when people and relationships are healed, find rest, and are restored to balance. In this way he placed pieces of tradition that were already available to him and that had been already interpreted in the telling within a still broader context of interpretation.
The Role of Liturgy
But the process of interpretation goes still further. The gospels, after all, are not displaced texts floating somewhere in the air. They are the church’s texts and their true “life situation” is the liturgy. There, they are celebrated as the word of God. There they are proclaimed as Gospel and authentically interpreted. In the Catholic Lectionary the Old Testament reading from Job 7:1-4, 6-7 is assigned to be read with the gospel on the Sunday when most of Mark 1:21-34 is proclaimed.4 There, Job speaks of the misery of human life. He says that life is like hard servitude, full of disappointment and toil. People spend it like day laborers who have to work all day in the heat and long for the shadows of evening. But there is no rest even at night. Job spends his nights as a sick man who tosses back and forth on his bed and wishes for morning because the night is endless. His nights and days are empty and without hope. Because his life is empty it has no weight. It swiftly disappears, and the thread of existence is cut off.
That is the content and especially the tone of the reading that is assigned to accompany the gospel of the “day in Capernaum.” Was Job right? Of course he was. The torturous suffering he describes courses through the world and always has. So the liturgy creates a sharp contrast on this Sunday between the Old Testament reading and the gospel, and apparently that contrast was deliberately aimed at.
Job spoke of how dark, empty, and hopeless human days are. Mark, in the gospel, describes a full and fulfilled day that is complete in itself and is full of health, holiness, and salvation. But that creates a still more profound interpretive context. Now we are speaking not only about the power of Jesus’ preaching, and not only about his power over demons and sickness. Beyond that, we are speaking of his power over the world’s chaos.
It is true that Mark’s composition, viewed in itself, is not lacking in chaos. That is present throughout the day. It erupts in the man who begins to shout in the middle of the synagogue worship because he is being shaken by his demons. It appears in the illness of Peter’s mother-in-law. It shows itself in the many sick people and those plagued by the demons of society, the people who are brought to Jesus in the evening.
The chaos of the world, the chaos of society, this whole disorder and confusion is thus already present even in Mark’s composition. But through the liturgical composition—that is, through the church’s official interpretation—this motif now stands out in full force. Now, for the first time, we grasp the real profundity of the Markan text. But now we also grasp the extent of the salvation that is happening here. The world is, in fact, alienated from itself and without hope. But with Jesus the state of things comes back to plumb, people sink into rest, chaos is transformed, the demons of society to which individuals are helplessly surrendered are banished. The evening and the morning are no longer full of disappointment but are overflowing with messianic salvation.
This salvation that fills the emptiness and eliminates chaos arises precisely from the fact that Jesus, with his Gospel, has set loose in the world a history that overturns everything, one to whose service people can surrender themselves. This is no longer arduous service like that spoken of in Job’s lament but a service in freedom. Peter’s mother-in-law is healed because she is touched by Jesus, the one who fulfills all history, and she immediately stands up and serves this new thing. It is a magnificent composition that Mark has created here; it reflects the whole of Jesus’ activity. But in the light of the liturgy this composition emerges with a still greater depth of acuity.
It is probably clear by now what I am about here: the bits of tradition available to Mark had already interpreted events in the life of Jesus. Mark then, most certainly, again interpreted Jesus and his actions with his composition of the “day at Capernaum.” The church’s liturgy then deepens this interpretive process still further: it places Jesus against the background of the Old Testament. Only then can we understand him fully.
So what about the correlation between “fact” and “interpretation”? Where are the pure facts in the composition of Mark 1:21-39, prior to the level of interpretation? And even if we could isolate the pure facts from the interpretations, would they be any kind of help to us at all? But above all: where is the truth in Mark’s composition? Is it to be found beyond the level of interpretation? Perhaps the following scenario can help us to get a little further.
A Thought Experiment
What if we imagine for a moment that the gospels had never been written, and tha
t instead the first day of Jesus’ public activity had been filmed by a hidden camera and everything said in connection with his appearance had been recorded by a concealed microphone. Image and sound were then combined into a film that is presented to us today, uncut and without commentary—with the claim that it offers us pure fact and is absolutely authentic. What would we know in that case?
Well, something: in this way we would perceive an immense number of details that are entirely absent from Mark’s account, or only fragmentarily there. We would know how Peter’s house looked, outside and inside. We would know how Sabbath worship was conducted in Capernaum. We would see sick people getting up again and shrieking possessed people suddenly becoming quiet. We would finally have original examples of the Aramaic spoken in Galilee in the first century. Above all, we would then have words of Jesus that we could be absolutely sure are authentic. But would we understand them? We would have no evangelists—that was the assumption behind our scenario—to interpret them for us. We would lack the whole context of interpretation that the New Testament and the communities of the early church place at our disposal.
And as regards the figure of Jesus himself: what would we see? We would see a man of the Near East, or more precisely a Near Eastern Jew, and we would learn that he is called Yeshua. He would—probably to our profound horror—look quite different from the way we had imagined him. He would be neither the sovereign Christ of the Byzantine apses nor the fettered man of sorrows of Gothic art nor the Apollonian hero of the Renaissance. His Aramaic language would be comprehensible to only a few specialists. A lot of his gestures and postures would seem strange to us. We would sense that he lived in a different civilization and a different culture.
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