by Leland Ryken
13G. B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), 160–77. Archibald M. Hunter, Interpreting the Parables (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 92–100, also distinguishes between arbitrary allegorizing and interpreting the intended allegorical elements in the parables.
14M. D. Goulder, “Characteristics of the Parables in the Several Gospels,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s., 19 (1968): 58–62.
15The easiest way to prove the allegorical nature of the parables is to compare them to the fables of Aesop. Aesop’s fables are truly one-point, relatively nonallegorical stories, and they at once strike a reader as far different from Jesus’ multifaceted parables in which numerous details call for identification and interpretation.
16John W. Sider, “Nurturing Our Nurse: Literary Scholars and Biblical Exegesis,” Christianity and Literature 32 (Fall, 1982): 15–21. A good source for biblical scholars to consult.
17Interpreting the Parables, 13–14.
18The Parables of Jesus: Their Art and Use (London: James Clarke, 1930), 51–52.
19Earlỵ Christian Rhetoric (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 74.
20The Parables of Jesus, 56.
21Good discussions of the parables as an assault on the reader’s “deep structures’’ of thinking include Robert W. Funk, Language, Hermeneutic and the Word óf God (New York: Harper and Row, 1966); John Dominic Crossan, The Dark Interval (Niles, 111.: Argus, 1975); Sallie TeSelle, Speaking in Parables (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975).
22For a good statement of the literary principle that we need to see universal as well as first-century meanings in the parables, see Jones, “Toward a Wider Interpretation,” 135—66 in The Art and Truth of the Parables. A lot of modern parable scholarship has surrounded the parables with so much first-century context that it becomes hard to see their relevance for twentieth-century people.
Chapter Nine
The Epistles
A Mixed Form
THE EPISTLE IS THE DOMINANT LITERARY GENRE of the New Testament in terms of space. It is a mixed form that combines literary and expository features. The New Testament Epistles are, moreover, a combination of private correspondence and public address. They may lean in a literary or nonliterary direction, depending on how a given writer on a given occasion treats the letter form. At no point, however, can we understand the New Testament Epistles without applying literary principles.
Epistolary Structure
The New Testament epistle has a relatively fixed form, consisting of five main parts:
Opening or salutation (sender, addressee, greeting).
Thanksgiving (including such features as prayer for spiritual welfare, remembrance of the recipient[s], and eschatological climax).
Body of the letter (beginning with introductory formulae and concluding with eschatological and travel material).
Paraenesis (moral exhortations).
Closing (final greetings and benediction).
This formal element in the New Testament Epistles satisfies the literary impulse for pattern and design, and it proves that the writers self-consciously met certain understood conventions of letter writing when they wrote the Epistles.
Discerning the Unity of an Epistle
The letter form requires different activities from a reader than stories and poems do. One thing all of these forms do have in common is that they will yield most if they are read as literary wholes, preferably in a single sitting. But the flow of a letter is topical and logical, in contrast to the flow of events that makes up a story or the sequence of feelings in a lyric poem. The best way of outlining an epistle is by topics, noting how one argument leads logically to the next. The most crucial rule of all is to “think paragraphs” when reading an epistle.1
The Real-Life Situations in the Epistles
Despite the expository and logical nature of the writing in the Epistles, they nonetheless possess the experiential immediacy that we expect of literature. The Epistles are not essays in systematic theology which the apostles sat down to compose in their studies. They are letters addressed to specific people and situations. They convey a sense of actual life in the manner of other literature. Taken together, the New Testament Epistles yield a vivid picture of the varied life of the early Christian church.
Their Occasional Nature
Because they arise from specific occasions, the Epistles should not be pressed into a more systematic form than they are intended to have. As one biblical scholar has stated,
Since these are letters, the points argued and stressed are often not those of the greatest importance. They are usually points about which differences of opinion existed. . . .The churches addressed. . .knew [the author’s] views on the great central facts; these he can take for granted. It is to show them their mistakes in the application of these central facts to their daily life, to help their doubts, that he writes. . . .Many of the questions he discusses are those propounded by the perplexed church. He answers the question because it has been raised.2
In a word, the Epistles are occasional letters evoked by a specific situation, not formal essays on theological topics.
Literary Genres Within the Epistles
One of the literary features of the Epistles is the specific genres that are embedded in them. Proverbs and aphoristic sayings abound (“Bad company corrupts good character,” 1 Cor. 15:33; “a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough,” Gal. 5:9). There are liturgical formulas, creedal affirmations, and hymns (e.g., Gal. 5:14; Phil. 2:6–11; Col. 1:15–20; 1 Tim. 3:16). Lists of vices and virtues are also a recognizable form (e.g., Rom. 1:29–31; Gal. 5:22–23), as is the imperative cluster (e.g., Col. 3).
Poetic Language
Another thing that makes the Epistles literary is their reliance on the resources of poetic language and figures of speech. Metaphor and simile are common: “gluing yourselves to the good”; “boiling with the spirit”; “let the love of Christ make its home in you”; “let the peace of Christ be umpire in your hearts.”3 Many of the comparisons are extended ones that ask for detailed analysis (such as the complete armor of the Christian in Eph. 6:10–17). Other rhetorical and poetic devices require more of a willingness to be receptive to their affective style. I refer to such forms as rhetorical questions (“If God is for us, who is against us?”), paradox (“when I am weak, then I am strong”), questions and exclamations (“What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means!”), and apostrophe (“O death, where is thy sting?”).
Rhetorical Patterns
Yet another literary element in the Epistles is their rhetoric and style. To experience the full impact of these letters requires us to be sensitive to the masterful use of repetition, balance, antithesis, and parallel constructions. All of them are present on a small scale in the following passage (2 Cor. 4:8–9):
We are hard pressed on every side,
but not crushed;
perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed.
The same rhetorical features appear on a much grander scale elsewhere, and in an instance such as 1 Corinthians 13 the elaborate patterning becomes an example of great art.
SUMMARY
The forcefulness, beauty, and affective power of the New Testament Epistles are not accidental. They are the product of artistic and highly patterned prose. The New Testament Epistles employ a fixed form, incorporate smaller literary genres into the overriding letter form, and rely on poetic language and stylistic patterns to communicate their meanings with power. The corresponding skills that they require from readers are the ability to determine the overall structure of an epistle, to “think paragraphs” in following the logical flow of ideas, to interpret figurative language, and to be sensitive to the effects of artistic patterning.
Further Reading
A wealth of literary criticism on the Epistles has been collected in The New Testament in Literary Criticism, ed. Leland Ry
ken (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1984), in sections on “Epistle” and “Paul as Letter Writer.” For stylistic analysis of rhetorical patterns, see P. C. Sands, Literary Genius of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932), pp. 128–84; and Ryken, The Literature of the Bible, pp. 317–31. Good general studies include Calvin J. Roetzel, The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context (Atlanta: John Knox, 1975), and William G. Doty, Letters in Primitive Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1973).
1This advice comes from Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 51.
2Morton Scott Enslin, The Literature of the Christian Movement (New York: Harper and Row, 1938, 1956), 214.
3I have taken these translations from P. C. Sands, Literary Genius of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932), 153.
Chapter Ten
Satire
The Prominence of Satire in the Bible
THERE IS MORE SATIRE IN THE BIBLE than one would guess from standard discussions. Many a passage in the Bible would make a great deal more sense to us if we simply added satire to our lexicon of literary terms.
A Definition of Satire
Satire is the exposure, through ridicule or rebuke, of human vice or folly. An object of attack is the essential ingredient. Thus defined, satire is not inherently literary, since the exposure of vice or folly can occur in nonliterary as well as literary writing. Satire becomes literary when the controlling purpose of attack is combined with a literary method, such as fiction, story, description of characters, metaphor, and so forth. Satire may appear in any literary genre (such as narrative, lyric, or parable), and it may be either a minor part of a work or the main content of an entire work. Although satire usually has one main object of attack, satiric works often make a number of jabs in various directions, a feature that has been called “satiric ripples.”
Object of Attack
In any literary satire, there are four main elements that require the reader’s attention. The first is the object(s) of attack. The object of attack might be a single thing. Thus the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31) attacks love of money and the callous unconcern that it encourages, and the Book of Jonah exposes the type of Jewish ethnocentrism that tried to make God’s mercy the exclusive property of the Jews. But in a satire such as the Book of Amos or Jesus’ satiric discourse against the Pharisees in Matthew 23, the list of things being attacked is an ever-expanding list of diverse abuses. Another thing to note about the object of attack is that it can be either a historical particular or a universal vice. The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9–14), for example, is specifically an attack on the self-righteousness of the Pharisees, while the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:13–21) is not about a specific category of materialistic people but about covetous greed in general.
The Satiric Vehicle
The second thing to note in a satire is the satiric vehicle. Story is one of the commonest satiric vehicles, as in the story of Jonah or the satiric parables of Jesus. In the absence of a full-fledged story, there can be brief snatches of action, as when Amos recounts the immoral actions of which Israel is guilty (Amos 2:6–12), or when Isaiah briefly narrates how idol worshipers first have a goldsmith make an image and then fall down before the lifeless statue (Isa. 46:5–7). The portrait technique or character sketch is a standard form with satirists. Typical specimens are Ezekiel’s satiric portrait of the prince of Tyre (Ezek. 28:1–19) or Isaiah’s portrait of the haughty women of Jerusalem, who can be seen
walking along with outstretched necks,
flirting with their eyes,
tripping along with mincing steps,
with ornaments jingling on their ankles (Isa. 3:16).
Such literary forms as narrative and portrait are among the more artistic and sophisticated types of satiric vehicle. At the more informal end of the spectrum we find an array of cruder satiric weapons. One is direct vituperation or denunciation: “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan. . . ,” shouts Amos to the wealthy women of Israel (4:1). The “woe formula’’ is equally direct: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. . . Jesus repeatedly says in Matthew 23. A satiric vehicle can be as brief and simple as a derogatory epithet or title (“you blind guides,’’ Jesus calls the Pharisees in Matt. 23:16, 23), or an uncomplimentary metaphor or simile, as when Jesus compares the Pharisees to whitewashed tombs that are outwardly beautiful but inwardly filled with repulsive decay (Matt. 23:27–28).
The Satiric Tone
Thirdly, satire always has a prevailing tone. There are two possibilities, which literary scholars have named after two Roman satirists. Horatian satire is gently urbane, smiling, subtle. It aims to correct folly or vice by gentle laughter, on the premise that it can be laughed out of existence. Examples of the “soft sell” approach to satire include the story of Jonah, the pouting prophet; Isaiah’s rollicking story of the steps by which a pagan fashions an idol out of wood and uses part of the very same piece of wood to build a fire (Isa. 44:9–17); and Jesus’ hilarious portrait of the Pharisees who “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” (Matt. 23:24).
The other type of satire, traditionally known as Juvenalian satire, is biting, bitter, and angry in tone. It does not try to laugh vice out of existence but instead attempts to lash it out of existence. It points with contempt and moral indignation at the corruptness and evil of people and institutions. Most satire in the Bible is of this type, and it includes a large quantity of scorn (as distinct from humorous laughter).
The Satiric Norm
Finally, satire always has a stated or implied satiric norm—a standard by which the object of attack is being criticized. The satiric norm is the positive model that is offered to the reader as an alternative to the negative picture that always dominates a satiric work. In the story of Jonah, for example, the universal mercy of God extended to the repentant city of Nineveh is a positive foil to the misguided nationalism of Jonah. In the Sermon on the Mount, each of Jesus’ satiric charges against the Pharisees is accompanied by a positive command (Matt. 6:1–14).
The Pervasiveness of Satire in the Bible
Where can we find this type of satire in the Bible? Virtually everywhere. Books such as Jonah and Amos are wholly satiric. Other books are heavily satiric; for example, the Book of Job holds up the orthodox “comforters” to rebuke, and the Book of Ecclesiastes is a prolonged satiric attack against a society that is much like our own—acquisitive, materialistic, hedonistic, secular. Many of Jesus’ parables are satiric (e.g., the rich man and Lazarus, and the Pharisee and the publican). There is a satiric thread in biblical narrative whenever a character’s flaws are prominently displayed (for example, Jacob’s greed, Haman’s pride, and the Pharisees’ antagonism to Jesus in the Gospels). Satire can show up in lyric poetry, as in taunt songs directed against the worshipers of idols, or the portraits of the speaker’s enemies in the psalms of lament. Many biblical proverbs have a satiric edge (“Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion,” Prov. 11:22). And the discourses of Jesus in the Gospels are often satiric.
Satire in Biblical Prophecy
The largest category of satire in the Bible is prophetic writing. The two major types of prophetic oracle (pronouncement) are the oracle of judgment and the oracle of salvation. The best literary approach to the oracle of judgment is satire. These passages always have a discernible object of attack, a standard by which the judgment is rendered, and a vehicle of attack (at its simplest, it consists of a prediction of calamity in which the prophet pictures in vivid and specific detail a reversal of present conditions). Such satiric oracles of judgment pervade the prophetic books of the Bible; typical specimens are Isaiah 5; Ezekiel 28:1–19; and Ezekiel 34.
SUMMARY
Much of the Bible’s truth and wisdom have been enshrined in the form of satire. By framing truth as an attack on vice or folly, biblical satire drives its point home with an electric c
harge. Usually the attack is conducted by means of a discernible literary technique. Despite the negative approach of the satirist (who is always busy attacking someone or something), a positive norm emerges from biblical satire because it includes a foil to the evil that is attacked. That foil is usually the character or law of God. Satire is an unsettling genre. Its aim is to induce discomfort with the way things are, which explains why there is so much of it in the Bible. The reader’s task with satire is fourfold: to identify the object(s) of attack, the satiric vehicle, the tone, and the norm or standard by which things are criticized.
Further Reading
Leland Ryken, The Literature of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), pp. 261–70; Edwin M. Good, Irony in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965), as indicated in the index; Harry Boonstra, “Satire in Matthew,” Christianity and Literature, 29, no. 4 (Summer 1980): 32–45; Elton Trueblood, The Humor of Christ (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), especially chapter 4. Although it does not use the framework of literary satire, Claus Westermann’s Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech, trans. Hugh C. White (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967), has material that can easily be assimilated into the category of satire.
Chapter Eleven
Visionary Literature
