I have found the famous baptismal scene from the original Godfather movie (1972) to be the most effective for explaining to students what “dramatized irony” is and how it works. When I show students this clip and then read passages like Mark 5:21-43 or 11: 12-25, the text seems to come alive (and, they seem to understand what “dramatized irony” is much better than when I simply define it).

Let me provide a little context. I begin nearly every biblical course I teach with this statement: “I have a set of lenses you cannot see, but without which I cannot see.” This disclosure is meant to lead to a frank discussion of how our individual lenses guide, color, and even taint our interpretation of texts. In reality, what we bring to a given text is often as determinative in our interpretation (if not more so), than what we actually find in the text. I contend that we cannot do responsible exegesis, nor can we enter into intellectually-honest dialogue with one another unless we are honest about this fact. I take as my case in point, Ratzinger on Jesus.

His first book begins with a foreword that is essentially an overview of the methodology he will be using. This seems like a good place for him to start. Ratzinger makes it clear that he is using a historical-critical approach, guided by canonical criticism all set in the context of the Roman Catholic tradition. From there, he proceeds to an exposition of Jesus’ life and vocation, using the four canonical gospels as something of a “mosaic” from which to discuss these issues.

In his exposition of Jesus’ baptism and calling he writes:

A broad current of liberal scholarship has interpreted Jesus’ Baptism as a vocational experience. After having led a perfectly normal life in the province of Galilee, at the moment of his Baptism he is said to have had an earth-shattering experience. It was then, we are told, that he became aware of his special relationship to God and his religious mission. The mission, moreover, supposedly originated from the expectation motif then dominant in Israel, creatively shaped by John, and from the emotional upheaval that the event of his Baptism brought about in Jesus’ life. But none of this can be found in the texts [of the gospels] (Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, 23, emphasis added).

Everything Ratzinger affirms in this paragraph is true. Now, let’s put aside for a moment the question of whether it’s legitimate to speculate and make constructions based upon things that are not in the biblical texts (for the record, I think such extra-textual constructions are necessary). For Ratzinger, this critique becomes a criterion to dismiss a particular way of thinking about Jesus. If it’s not in the texts, it’s probably not a legitimate conclusion.

However, just a page earlier in the same chapter we find Ratzinger’s reconstruction of Jesus’ baptism, based on the four gospels. He discusses the baptismal scene in each of the Synoptic accounts. He then turns to the Fourth Gospel and goes directly to the Baptist’s pronouncement that Jesus is the “Lamb of God” (1:29, 36).  The Gospel of John says nothing about a baptism, yet Ratzinger ignores this and writes:

The reference to the Lamb of God interprets Jesus’ Baptism, his descent into the abyss of death, as a theology of the Cross, if we may so express it. All four Gospels recount in their different ways that, as Jesus came up from the water, heaven was ‘torn open’ (Mk 1:10) or ‘was opened’ (Mt 3:16; Lk 3:21); that the Spirit came down upon him ‘like a dove’; and that in the midst of all this a voice from heaven resounded (p. 22, emphasis added).

Ratzinger’s observation about the the testimony of “all four Gospels” is incorrect. At no point in his discussion does he make it clear that John’s Gospel has no baptismal scene. In fact, the evangelist goes out of the way to avoid the suggestion that the Baptist has baptized Jesus. Everywhere we see the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel he is informing everyone that he is simply an unworthy forerunner to Jesus. He must decrease while Jesus must increase.  This so-called “anti-Baptist polemic” of the Fourth Gospel has been a prominent discussion in Johannine studies for years, yet Ratzinger ignores this in favor of a more “catholic” interpretation of the literature.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not fault Ratzinger for having or even using his own interpretive “lenses.” What I balk at, however, is the double standard of suggesting that someone else must demonstrate his/her argument “from the text” when he does not always do the same. I am going to mention this to my class in today’s lecture as a means of fostering greater dialogue about the exegetical process. But for now, can we be honest and admit that there are times when all of us find what we are looking for in the text? This would make many of our conversations more enjoyable and much more intellectually-honest.

While Matthew retains much of Mark’s actual content (see Matthew 13:1-23), his focus is obviously quite different. Matthew is not, it seems to me, advancing any sort of secrecy motif. Instead, he is concerned with connecting his parables to explicit teaching about the “Kingdom of Heaven.” In his commentary on Matthew, R.T. France connects this unit thematically to questions about the rejection of Jesus’ teaching on the kindgom of heaven in chs. 11-12. He writes:

If the message is good, and it is being presented by someone whom the reader has by now learned to recognize as God’s Messiah, why is it not being welcomed and acted on by all those who hear? Surely the very phrase ‘the kingdom of heaven’ predisposes the reader to expect a triumphant proclamation and response. How can God’s kingship be resisted by his own people? The parables [in Matthew 13] provide a variety of models for understanding this conundrum, by highlighting sometimes the varied nature of the hearers (vv. 3-9), sometimes the unexpected nature of the message (vv. 31-33, 44-45), and sometimes the division which is an empirical reality of human society in relation to God (vv. 24-30, 47-50) (France, The Gospel of Matthew, 499).

Thus far I have conducted interviews with a good number of the most important figures working in contemporary Thomas research: Stephen J. Patterson, Nicholas Perrin, Stevan Davies, Risto Uro, Marvin Meyer, Ismo Dunderberg, to name a few. Over the next few months, both Simon Gathercole and Mark Goodacre have books coming out on the Gospel of Thomas. In the coming weeks will be interviewing each of them about their books and their views on important questions in Thomas research. Stay tuned. . . .

Today, I’m in a Wilco mood and I ran across this mini-concert at the NPR studios. It is serving as my daily inspiration before sitting down to write. Enjoy.

I have a little book on the Gospel of Thomas (Paulist Press) coming out in May, an edited volume on Unity and Diversity in the Gospels and Paul (SBL Press) coming out in July, and an edited volume on Johannine characterization (T & T Clark) coming out in late 2012/early 2013. Two of these books are at the presses and the third is nearly done, so I hope to be blogging regularly once again. Thanks to those of you who keep checking for updates even when it’s clear I’m off the grid!

So far I’ve had an opportunity to read the first few essays and I’ve been awakened to the importance of media studies for Johannine studies. I’ve read Werner Kelber (the pioneer of much work done in this area) and some of Thatcher’s previous work in the area of media studies (see especially his book, Why John Wrote a Gospel), but beyond that I had not considered this an issue of major importance. Thatcher’s first chapter (he has two in the book) is entitled, “The Riddle of the Baptist and the Genesis of the Prologue: John 1.-18 in Oral/Aural Media Culture.” In the essay he argues against the long-held source-critical theory that Prologue developed piecemeal and consists of earlier hymnic material and Johannine insertions. Building upon Kelber’s idea of “equiprimordiality,” Thatcher uses assumptions and tools from media studies to argue that the Prologue was an oral, compositional unity.

I look forward to finishing the book over the next week. I’ll try to post more reflections here.