furtherandfaster

Lessons from 1st century AD (2)

Finally finished reading Kenneth Bailey's book Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes - a long leisurely read because there was so much to take it that I took my time. Bailey taught in Beirut right through the civil war. His approach to biblical studies is cultural - he examines the text by reading arabic and syriac commentators who spent their whole lives in the region. And by examining the vocabulary and cultural practices of local communities which won't have change significantly in centuries. As a result of which he brings a perspective entirely different to the western seminary trained academic who doesn't know a word of aramaic - Jesus mother tongue.

Here are a couple of the big surprises for me. Firstly the parables function a lot more like poetry than short stories or fables. They are constructed phrase by phrase like poetry. Jesus and/or his followers composed his material - they didn't just talk or write prose.

The literary structures go back into Old Testament times. Prophetic forms are being used. And the structure is nested.  Rather like brackets in algebra. This is highly significant because in our culture we are wedded to the weight being on the last line. The last line is most significant. I could give you a several examples: in the syllogism  - all men are mortals, Socrates is a man, Socrates is mortal  in the sonnet, or must basically in the limerick. Most of our humour relies on the punchline. And I shouldn't have to reference the tagline in advertising on a blog which references advertising communication from time to time.  Well this literary form is more like a sandwich with this kind of structure ABCDCBA. The later components reinforcing the earlier ones. But what of course it means is that if you take the last line as the most significant yes it is repeated but the most significants aspect is the filing D in the middle. This form isn't just used in the parables it is used in a lot of the narrative as well. The stories are told using the same sandwich.  So at the end of Mark the gospel has a surprising ending - so startling that later writers tried to fix it with two alternative endings. The end to the gospel is the women running away from the empty tomb and saying nothing. Odd ending. But the significant part is the announcement of an angelic messenger that the Christ is risen. Read the last line as the punchline and you miss the point.

The shift is one of emphasis - it doens't mean that Dan Brown like we can trawl back over the content and draw out completely new interpretations. One of the most interesting aspects of the New Testament is that it wasn't written in the language that Jesus spoke or the one in which he taught. So the content is portable. What is so enjoyable about going back into the ancient forms and the Armenian is that you get a lot more of the puns and wordplay. And how dense the material is considering the brevity of a lot of these stories. They travel across culture and language. But the original material - is deep. And well constructed.

You could do a lot worse than translate a communication campaign into another language as a prerequisite before you do anything else with it. It is a vital test. Too much communication is language dependent. It has been a privilege to revisit story after story and to see how well crafted they are. And to remind myself that Jesus lived and thought like a Middle Easterner. Not like me.

I recommend Bailey's book. Its a classic.

Lessons from 1st century AD (1)

Bit of a follow on from the morning run and Bible on a stick post. I was listening to the parable of the vineyard where the owner having built the vineyard lets it out to tenants who refuse to pay rent and beat up those who are sent to collect it. Eventually the owner sends his son who the tenants kill.  A not very subtle attack on the religious authorities which was not lost on them - and they got their revenge within the week.  The original story was written 8 centuries before by Isaiah and Jesus the composer and improviser of the parable starts with a familiar story then takes it somewhere different.

What struck me was how he used the metaphor of stones all the way through it.  A man clears some ground - ie takes out the stones so he can plant, puts a wall around it, builds a watchtower and winepress (of stone).  When the son is killed and thrown out it doesn't actually say he was stoned to death but the implication isn't far away as the stone metaphor is repeated and expanded.  And at the end of the story the pay off is as follows - The stone that the builders rejected turned out to be the most important stone: the capstone.

Now conventionally in advertising we will use a single creative idea and repeat it. To reinforce it and embed it (we hope) in memory as the mind makes a new connection.  But in this parable we have a very different technique. Where the concrete image of stones is referenced. But the storyteller turns the metaphor over referencing connotation after connotation. Stones are discarded so the vineyard can be built. Stone is used to turn the vineyard into a going concern. Stones are implicitly used to kill the son and heir - (a pile of stones over the corpse?) and lastly the stone is central to the pay off line. Interesting I thought becaues it was a way to manage connotations instead of ignoring them. And by referencing so many connotations the message about the stone was more precise.

I'm reading a lot about middle eastern literature at present. Most of it to do with biblical interpretation. And how these oral texts were constructed to be transmitted and remembered. Will be posting more material as it comes to mind.