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Walter J. Ong’s Bold Thought and John Dominic Crossan’s Timid View of the Historical Jesus

Thomas J. Farrell—University of Minnesota Duluth—tfarrell@d.umn.edu

Walter J. Ong (1967) modestly describes himself, in his subtitle, as presenting “Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History.” But I take a stronger reading of the selected “Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History” that Ong (1967) presents. In my stronger reading of Ong (1967), the historical Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan is timid in his failure to use the full resources of Ong’s selected “Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History” to enrich our understanding of the historical Jesus. The goal of my commentary is to use Ong’s thought boldly here to deepen Crossan’s 1994 bold and daring formulations of the historical Jesus’s 93 original sayings.

In my 1,325-word online article “Amy-Jill Levine on Jesus’s Parables” (dated March 6, 2022), I first highlight the 2014 book Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi by the self-described “Yankee Jewish feminist” biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine of the Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee.

Next, I pivot to highlighting the relevant work of my favorite scholar, the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955).

However, it now strikes me that I should also highlight the 1994 book The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images by the historical Jesus specialist John Dominic Crossan. The historical Jesus was the first-century Jewish teacher/preacher who was crucified in Jerusalem by the local authorities of the Roman Empire on trumped up charges at the time of the Passover. The charges were trumped up because there is no credible evidence that the historical Jesus was advocating political sedition against the Roman Empire.

On the contrary, the evidence suggests that he was advocating what we today would style peaceful non-violent resistance to the Roman Empire—but not necessarily the kind of peaceful non-violent resistance that Henry David Thoreau or the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would later become famous for in American history. Nevertheless, a form of peaceful non-violent resistance that would be meaningful to first-century poor Jewish peasants (in terms of the broad category of class that Crossan works with) in rural areas of the Jewish homeland, the practice of which would re-animate their Jewish lives as nobodies (another term for class that Crossan also works with).

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In the final subsection of the present review essay, I will array Levine’s literal translations of the synoptic gospels’ parables that she works with in her 2014 book and Crossan’s counterparts from his listing of the 93 original sayings of the historical Jesus.

Now, a word is in order here about Crossan careful terminology. First and foremost, Crossan is a biblical scholar. So, he writes with the precision of a biblical scholar. Precise words are important for him. In this way, he is a highly literate author (in Ong’s terminology).

Now, Crossan is also the author of two books about Jesus’ parables (1) In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus (1973); and (2) Cliffs of Fall: Paradox and Polyvalence in the Parables of Jesus (1980).

In addition, Crossan published the ambitious 400-page book In Fragments: The Aphorisms of Jesus (1983).

Then Crossan synthesized these three books in his magnum opus The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (1991). Crossan’s bold and daring 1994 book on Jesus’s original sayings is a follow up to the success of his 1991 book about Jesus as a Mediterranean Jewish peasant nobody, who, in Crossan’s view was “nonliterate” (his word; p. 147). In addition, Crossan claims that the Jewish homeland was also part of the larger cross-cultural honor-shame practices and patriarchy of the Mediterranean region.

Which is to say that Crossan sees the historical Jesus as a Jew who could not read Jewish scripture. However, the historical Jesus was not uneducated about Jewish scriptures. This is the most crucial point about Jesus, not Crossan’s contention that he was “nonliterate.” In my judgment, every other point that Crossan makes about the historical Jesus and about his performances and practices would still be cogent even if the historical Jesus was minimally literate, because he would still have been a residually oral person.

Moreover, up to a certain juncture in his life, the historical Jesus was a follower of the residually oral apocalyptic Jewish preacher John the Baptist. However, when the historical Jesus emerged as an independent teacher/preacher, he was not, according to Crossan, advancing exactly the same the apocalyptic eschatology (end-time) that John the Baptist had been preaching. Rather, according to Crossan, the historical Jesus was advocating something else that may have sounded similar, but that was significantly different—which Crossan refers to as a sapiential eschatology.

Even though the emergence of the historical Jesus as an independent teacher/preacher to his fellow first-century poor Jewish nobodies is well known, we should pause long enough to note here his break with John the Baptist, which pre-dated the beheading of John by the local authority of the Roman Empire.

Now, if we accept Crossan’s view of Jesus’s ministry as a healing ministry, then we might wonder if significant healing experiences precipitated Jesus’ healing ministry. If Jesus experienced significant healing experiences, then he would have searched for a way to explain it

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to himself and others, using the conceptual resources of his first-century Jewish oral education in scriptures. If his healing experiences seemed wonderful to him, he might understandably attribute them to God and refer to his healing experiences as experiences of the kingdom of God.

In any event, we know that the historical Jesus went forth to prompt his fellow first-century Jews to experience the kingdom of God—which he himself presumably experienced and lived to tell them about. Because he enacted, and advocated, fellowship, we may suspect that the fellowship program that he enacted somehow resembled the psychodynamics involved in his own precipitating healing experiences.

We may describe his precipitating healing experiences as involving what Martin Buber describes as an optimal I-you experience in his classic 1923 book in German that is translated into English as I and Thou—a book that Ong never tired of touting. I honor Ong’s interest in Buber’s classic expression as translated into English in the subtitle of my introductory survey of Ong’s life and eleven of his books and selected articles, my book Walter Ong’s Contributions to Cultural Studies: The Phenomenology of the Word and I-Thou Communication, revised second edition (2015; first edition, 2000). However, I am aware that Buber’s book title would more accurately be translated as I and You. Nevertheless, I persist in saying I-thou in my subtitle, as does Ong.

However, if we accept Ong’s account of our Western cultural history, then we should also recognize that we in contemporary Western culture today are culturally and psychologically removed not only in time but also in our psychodynamics from the historical Jesus and his fellow first-century Jewish nobodies (in Crossan’s terminology)—who were much closer to the orally based characteristics of thought and expression that Ong succinctly sums up in his 1982 book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (esp. pp. 36-57). Nevertheless, even as highly evolved Westerners culturally, we remain capable of experiencing the healing involved in optimal I-you encounters of the kind Buber celebrates.

By way of digression, I should point out here that Pope Francis encourages encounter and dialogue. If my admittedly speculative conjecture here that the historical Jesus may have experienced optimal I-you encounters and their healing is fundamentally correct, then we might see Pope Francis’s practice of encouraging encounter and dialogue as hearkening back to the experience and subsequent practice of the historical Jesus.

For a relevant account of healing encounters in antiquity, see Pedro Lain Entralgo’s book The Therapy of the Word in Classical Antiquity, edited and translated by L. J. Rather and John M. Sharp; with a “Foreword” by Walter J. Ong (1970).

The Testimony of Walter J. OngNow, late in Ong’s long and productive scholarly life, he began work on a new book that he seems to have envisioned as a synthesis of his own thought in his mature work from the early

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1950s onward. However, he eventually stopped working on it for reasons that we do not know for sure (but health problems may have been a factor). Nevertheless, his uncompleted book project was published posthumously as the book Language as Hermeneutic: A Primer on the Word and Digitization, edited and with commentaries by Thomas D. Zlatic and Sara van den Berg (2017).

To whatever extent Ong envisioned Language as Hermeneutic as a kind of synthesis of his own thought, I should point out here that Ong published three books in the 1980s, each of which also represents a kind of synthesis of certain aspects of his thought: (1) Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality [Gender], and Consciousness (1981), the expanded version of his 1979 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University; (2) Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982), mentioned above, Ong’s most widely translated and most widely read book; and (3) Hopkins, the Self, and God (1986), the published version of Ong’s 1981 Alexander Lectures at the University of Toronto.

Now, in Ong’s book Language as Hermeneutic, we find Zlatic’s essay “Language as Hermeneutic: An Unresolved Chord” (pp. 147-180). In it, under the subheading “The Argument” (p. 151), Zlatic says, “In his original prologue, Ong announced two theses for Language as Hermeneutic: [1] primarily, [that] all languages use is hermeneutic, and [2] secondarily, that all communication technology is fractioning or digitizing, creating increasing complexity and thus a need for integration at a higher level of complexity and understanding. The primary thesis speaks to the nature of language and its relation to thought. The secondary thesis is concerned with the evolution of language and thought in dynamic interplay with emerging communications technology” (pp. 151-152).

Now, subsequently, Zlatic, who has worked extensively with Ong’s papers in the Ong Archives at the Saint Louis University Pius XII Memorial Library, says, “When in the 1980s Ong began research into Language as Hermeneutic, he created a series of notecards on aphorisms. It is significant that his definition of ‘aphorisms’ was written under the heading ‘hermeneutics’: ‘a truth which contains its own reflection on itself—and hence incorporates within itself a dialectic which renders it bottomless as well as intellectually appealing’ (Notecards 9-30-84). In this same set of cards Ong recorded from [the biblical scholar John Dominic] Crossan’s influential [1983] book, In Fragments: The Aphorisms of Jesus, such as, in the aphorism the hearer/reader is ‘challenged to hermeneutics’ (p. 14); the aphorism ‘is always a heuristic matrix and a hermeneutical challenge’ (p. 22); ‘it defies all systems’ (p. 10); it is ‘a form of epistemological conflict’ (p. 11); whereas method is more suited for proof and belief, aphorisms as knowledge broken ‘point toward action’ (pp. 14-16)” (p. 166).

We should note here that all of Ong’s notes reference material in Crossan’s survey of literature about aphorisms in Chapter 1: “Aphoristic Genre” (pp. 3-36), but not anything specific that Crossan says about Jesus’s use of the 133 aphorisms by Jesus that Crossan discusses in his book.

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Finally, I want to mention here the following two sentences from Crossan’s Chapter 2: “Aphoristic Core” (pp. 37-66) in his 1983 book: “I do not believe in any intrinsic superiority between orality and scribality in either direction (but see Ong). It is clear, however, that peoples or individuals caught in the transition from orality to scribality may well compare advantages of the former with the disadvantages of the latter and decide that the movement is only loss (see Kelber, 1983)” (pp. 18-19).

Crossan here refers to the Lutheran biblical scholar Werner H. Kelber’s 1983 book The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q, with a “Foreword” by Walter J. Ong, S.J.

Crossan here refers to Ong’s 1977 book Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture. I am not aware of another other books by Ong mentioned by Crossan in any of his other books.

But Ong does not explicitly use the term scribality in his 1977 book. Ong prefers to refer instead to writing (also known in Ong’s work as chirography) and to literacy (phonetic alphabetic literacy) and, with reference to later developments, to print (also known in Ong’s work as typography—after the Gutenberg printing press emerged in Europe in the mid-1450s). So much for Ong’s thought.

As to Crossan’s claim that he does “not believe in any intrinsic superiority between orality and scribality,” he may not be entirely honest in saying this, because he is concerned primarily with delineating his sense of the orality of the historical Jesus’s performances, as distinct from any subsequent scribal record of what he may have said. Let me explain.

To the best of Crossan’s ability, he is attempting to use the scholarly resources of the Parry-Lord theory of composition of oral epic poetry and certain other scholarly resources to portray the historical Jesus as a religious first-century Jewish “nonliterate” (Crossan’s term) oral performer with a calling to teach his fellow first-century Jewish nobodies in rural Galilee. Implicitly, Crossan, in effect, is claiming the superiority of his portrait of the historical Jesus, over against certain other portraits of him. (Crossan [1994] adverts implicitly to the Parry-Lord theory of composition of oral epic poetry, as I note below.)

Nevertheless, Crossan is too timid to use the full resources of that Ong (1967) describes as “Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History”—and the fuller resources of Ong (1982, esp. pp. 36-57).

Now, back to Zlatic’s essay. He says, “Aphorism as ‘knowledge broken’ not only prefigures the first thesis of Language as Hermeneutic ([that] ‘use of language from the very beginning is interpretation or hermeneutics’) but also applies to the book’s subsidiary thesis (that communications technology is fragmenting in that it decontextualizes knowledge from human dialogue and thereby atomizes knowledge into data). However, knowledge broken through technologies of the word still can be evocative [presumably as aphorisms as ‘knowledge broke’

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also can be?]. The overwhelming proliferation of digitized and mathematized binary data make urgent a unitive effort toward integration” (pp. 167-168).

Zlatic also says, “Ong’s own aphorism ‘all text is pretext’ calls attention to the necessity of dialogue to fill in the inevitable gaps and incompleteness of any statement, written, oral, or electronic” (p. 166). Zlatic is the author of the lengthy essay “Faith in Pretext: An Ongian Context for [Melville’s Novel] The Confidence-Man” in the anthology Of Ong and Media Ecology, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (2012, pp. 241-280).

Now, whatever else may be said about Ong’s own modulated style of speaking and writing in different contexts and for different anticipated audiences, he generally did not tend to be aphoristic, even though he is famous for working with what he himself styles as contrasts (e.g., orality and literacy). When we turn to Crossan’s careful style of expressing himself with precision, we note his use of contrasts to clearly differentiate the historical Jesus (e.g., apocalyptic eschatology of John the Baptist versus sapiential eschatology of the historical Jesus; nobodies and somebodies in class structure; and so on). However, Crossan’s style in general does not tend to be aphoristic.

Now, because Ong took note of Crossan’s characterizations of Jesus’s aphorisms as building in “a form of epistemological conflict,” I want to mention here G. E. R. Lloyd’s classic study of ancient Greek culture, Polarity and Analogy: Two Types of Argumentation in Early Greek Thought (1966). If we were to think of Crossan’s characterization “a form of epistemological conflict” as involving what Lloyd describes as polarity, then we could say that Jesus’s aphorisms implicitly embody the built-in dynamics that will eventually emerge in ancient Greek culture in Aristotle’s invention of the formal study of logic, as Lloyd himself explains in Chapter VII: “The Development of Logic and Methodology in Early Greek Thought” (pp. 421-440).

In large measure, Ong’s 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason is a history of the formal study of logic in Aristotle down to the French Renaissance logician and educational reformer and Protestant martyr Peter Ramus (1515-1572) and beyond. In it, Ong works with the aural-to-visual shift in the human sensorium (for specific page references, see the “Index” [p. 396]).

Of course, the historical Jesus did not emerge in ancient Greek culture, but in ancient Hebrew culture. No doubt phonetic alphabetic literacy also had an impact of ancient Hebrew culture, just as it had an impact of ancient Greek culture. Nevertheless, the historical Jesus embarked on his public ministry of teaching and preaching in a residual form of a primary oral culture (in Ong’s terminology)—and Crossan claims that Jesus was “nonliterate,” mentioned above.

Subsequently, Ong went from discussing the aural-to-visual shift in his 1958 book to discussing the human sensorium in his 1967 book The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (for specific page references, see the “Index” [p. 356]), the expanded version of Ong’s 1964 Terry Lectures at Yale University.

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Subsequently, Ong postulated what he refers to as the world-as-event sense of life and the world-as-view sense of life in his 1969 article “World as View and World as Event” in the journal American Anthropologist. It is reprinted in volume three of Ong’s Faith and Contexts, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (1995, pp. 69-90).

I would suggest that the world-as-event sense of life presupposes an oral-aural hermeneutic (or simply an oral hermeneutic, for short) and that the world-as-view sense of life presupposes a visual hermeneutic.

I have discussed Ong’s 1969 article extensively in my article “Walter Ong and Harold Bloom Can Help Us Understand the Hebrew Bible” in the journal Explorations in Media Ecology (2012).

For all practical purposes the shift in ancient Hebrew scriptures that the Jewish biblical scholar James L. Kugel delineates in his book The Great Shift: Encountering God in Biblical Times (2017) involved the ancient Hebrew experience under the influence of phonetic alphabetic literacy of what Ong refers to as the aural-to-visual shift on his massively researched 1958 book. To spell out the obvious, the historical Jesus emerged in ancient Jewish culture well after the great shift that Kugel delineates had evolved.

I have discussed Ong’s philosophical thought, with special attention to visuality, in my lengthy online essay “Walter J. Ong’s Philosophical Thought” (dated September 20, 2020).

For further references, also see my online 2017 resource document “A Concise Guide to Five Themes in Walter J. Ong’s Thought and Selected Related Works.”

For a relevant study, in effect, of phonetic alphabetic literacy in ancient Hebrew culture and the evolution of a linear sense of time (as distinct from a cyclic sense of time, in Ong’s terminology), see the Jewish biblical scholar Richard Elliott Friedman’s book The Hidden Book of the Bible (1998).

For a relevant account of how ancient Judaism evolved well after the crucifixion of the historical Jesus and also well after the ascendancy of the victorious Roman Empire in the Jewish homeland, see the Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner’s book The Transformation of Judaism: From Philosophy to Religion (1992).

Now, this brings me to Ong’s crucial differentiation of primary orality and secondary orality. He makes this crucial differentiation because he does not want to risk possibly implying a cyclic view of time (known as cyclicism, for short). For Ong, secondary orality involves the panoply of communications media that accentuate sound.

For Ong, the classic account of the cyclic view of time in primary orality is Mircea Eliade’s book The Myth of the Eternal Return, translated from the French by Willard R. Trask (1954).

Now, if primary orality presupposes an oral hermeneutic, then how should we characterize the hermeneutic inculcated by secondary orality—and exemplified by Ong himself (and also by

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Crossan, in my estimate, in his 1994 book The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images—which is to say that as scholars both Ong and Crossan are fundamentally literate persons, as am I)?

Should we simply differentiate the hermeneutics as the primary oral hermeneutic and the secondary oral hermeneutic—each of which stands in contradistinction over against the visual hermeneutic? Perhaps I can operationally define and explain secondary oral hermeneutic here as one in which primary oral hermeneutic is explicitly recognized and acknowledged—as it is by both Ong and Crossan.

Using this possible terminology, I would characterize Ong’s mature work from the early 1950s onward as involving his own evolving secondary oral hermeneutic, and I would also characterize Crossan’s work at least from his 1983 book onward as also involving his own evolving secondary oral hermeneutic. But I would say that such terminology is a bit cumbersome, to say the least.

Even though Ong stopped working on the book Language as Hermeneutic before he had completed it, he did publish a fine article titled “Hermeneutic Forever: Voice, Text, Digitization, and the ‘I’” in the journal Oral Tradition (March 1995). It is reprinted in volume four of Ong’s Faith and Contexts, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (1999, pp. 183-204).

John Dominic Crossan’s Bold and Daring 1994 BookIn Crossan’s 1994 book The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images, the key terms in the title are “Essential” and “Original.” Crossan does not claim that he knows the earliest form of each of Jesus’s “Original Sayings,” but only the “Essential” form of each. That is to say that the exact wording of the “Essential” form of each saying undoubtedly varied in each of Jesus’s live performances. In short, each “Essential” form of each saying differed in each prose iteration.

Put differently, the metrical necessities of oral poetry required greater uniformity in oral formulas in each oral performance, as Albert B. Lord describes in his classic study The Singer of Tales (1960)—a book that Ong never tired of referring to. Ong’s review of Lord’s book is reprinted in Ong (2002, pp. 301-306).

So, the historical Jesus was not an oral singer of tales—so he was not a poet and metrical lines were not important in his oral performances. But he tended to be poetic in his use of imagistic thinking. Perhaps all oral discourse in primary oral cultures, or residual forms of primary oral cultures (in Ong’s terminology), involves the ineluctable use of imagistic thinking.

One further point that Crossan emphasizes is that the historical Jesus was not merely an entertainer, as were the singers of tales studied by Milman Parry and Lord—and as are entertainers today in movies and on television who enlist our imagistic thinking through their images and engage our listening as well, as did the ancient Homeric epic singers. According to

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Crossan, the historical Jesus was an entertaining performer who was advancing a program and practice of interpersonal fellowship. In plain English, he wanted his fellow Jewish nobodies to enact interpersonal fellowship, as he himself enacted it.

The Harvard classicist Milman Parry’s seminal publications are published in the 550-page book The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry, edited with an “Introduction” (pp. ix-lxii) by Adam Parry (1987).

For a judicious study of the Parry-Lord theory of oral poetry compositional practices as exemplified in the Homeric epics the Iliad and the Odyssey, see John Miles Foley’s judicious book Homer’s Traditional Art (1999).

For the classic study of ancient Greek imagistic thinking, involving the Parry-Lord theory of oral poetry compositional practices, see the classicist Eric A. Havelock’s book Preface to Plato (1963)—a book that Ong never tired of referring to. Ong’s review of Havelock’s 1963 book is reprinted in Ong (2002, pp. 309-312).

For English translations of the Homeric epics that accentuate the features of oral composition stressed by Parry and Lord, see Richmond Lattimore’s The Iliad of Homer (1951) and The Odyssey of Homer (1965).

In other words, according to Crossan, the historical Jesus did not simply want to engage the memories of his listeners so that they might be able to tell others about what he said. Yes, he did want that much. But, according to Crossan, he also wanted them to do as they saw him do and enact interpersonal fellowship, following his example. Perhaps we could say that he wanted his followers to form a movement, so to speak—to wit, a Jesus movement.

In Crossan’s Chapter 1: “Contexts” in his 1994 book The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images (pp. 1-24), he says, “The continuity between Jesus and his first companions is less in memory than in mimesis, less in remembrance than in imitation” (p. 22).

For a relevant book about oral memory, see the French Jesuit anthropologist Marcel Jousse’s posthumously published 400-page anthology Memory, Memorization, and Memorizers: The Galilean Oral-Style Tradition and Its Traditions, texts selected, edited, and translated and with an “Introduction” (pp. 1-13) by Edgard Sienaert; with a “Foreword” (pp. xiii-xxiii) by Werner H. Kelber (2018).

Now, In Crossan’s Chapter 1: “Contexts” in his 1994 book The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images (pp. 1-24), he, in effect, operationally defines and explains what I referred to as his secondary oral hermeneutic under the subheading “Orality and Translation” (esp. pp. 20-21). He says, “In a purely or residually oral situation, Homeric bards or Serbo-Croatian singers [studied by Parry and Lord] can recount thousands of lines of an epic as long as it is traditional, rhythmic, and formulaic. They know classic stories, typical scenes, and set formulae, and they mix and match creatively in performance. They do not, like a modern actor, memorize

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thousands of lines verbatim. That cannot be done without a written text [and an evolved literate memory, I would add], and in fact, the very concept of verbatim is part of writing’s domination. If, therefore, Jesus was operating as an oral or non-literate peasant [in terms of class structure] speaking to others like himself [nobodies], and if there is no evidence that he was drilling them in some sort of formulaic remembrance, how can we trust their reports, even their very earliest reports?

“There are two levels to that question. The surface response is that the forms of speech used by Jesus, the aphorisms and the parable, are calculated to help remembrance. The aphorism is somewhat like a proverb. Both forms [aphorism and proverb] are short and sharp, usually involving a content whose image strikes the imagination combined with a form whose rhetoric is difficult to forget. A stitch in time saves—how many? After stitch and time, it could only be five or nIne [n.b., the two caps]. Try each: A stich in time saves five; a stitch in time saves nine [n.b., the initial italicized letters]. We are, in English, far, far more used to the SN than the SF conjunction. It has to be: A stitch in time saves nine. Proverbs distill conventional or social wisdom; aphorisms imitate their form to assert possibly unconventional but definitely individual wisdom. An aphorism is a proverb with an attitude. . . . Unlike the proverb, which is remembered in syntactical exactitude, the aphorism is remembered more as structural conjunction” (p. 21).

After noting that parables are short stories, Crossan says, “Our extant New Testament versions of Jesus’s parables are more like plot summaries than precise transcriptions [of whatever he may have said in one performance]. An actual version might have been told or even acted out [mimed] by Jesus in far greater detail and with far more audience interaction and response. But even though aphorism and parable are forms of oral speech that vastly enhance the possibility of remembrance, there is one deeper continuity to be noted. This deeper continuity is not memory but mimesis, not in remembrance, but in imitation” (p. 22).

In any event, in Crossan’s Chapter 2: “Texts & Images” (pp. 25-144), he identifies what he refers to as 93 original sayings of Jesus. Images are scattered on various pages, where space allows. Next, in Crossan’s Chapter 3: “Notes on Texts” (pp. 145-170), he provides a note about each of the 93 texts. Then, in Crossan’s Chapter 4 “Inventory of Images” (pp. 171-199), he discusses each of the 65 images or scenes and gives the source of each image.

Now, for Crossan’s account of how the Jesus movement evolved after the crucifixion of the historical Jesus, see his book The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus (1998).

Levine’s Parables of Jesus and Crossan’s Original Sayings of JesusCritical biblical scholars debate exactly when the historical Jesus began his public ministry. They also debate exactly when (which year) he was crucified in Jerusalem at the time of the Passover. But there is a rough consensus among critical biblical scholars that a period of oral

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transmission of the teachings of the historical Jesus preceded the written collections of his teachings.

In addition, critical biblical scholars debate exactly when the four canonical narrative gospels were written. But there is a rough consensus that the narrative gospels emerged after the public ministry of St. Paul the Apostle. There is also a rough consensus that the Gospel of Mark was the first narrative gospel to emerge and that the Gospel of John was the fourth to emerge.

As a pioneering historical Jesus scholar, John Dominic Crossan is going out on a limb, figuratively speaking, by reconstructing the historical Jesus’s 93 original sayings and by selecting the 65 earliest images of Jesus in his 1994 book The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images.

Now, in the nine chapters in Levine’s 2014 book on Jesus’s parables (pp. 25-273), she begins each chapter with her own fairly literal translation of each parable in the Greek text of one of the synoptic gospels. In this subsection, I quote each of her fairly literal translations into English of each parable attributed to the Aramaic-speaking Jesus (i.e., not Greek-speaking) in the Greek text of three synoptic gospels, and then I quote Crossan’s relevant original saying of Jesus in English.

Levine’s Chapter 1: “Lost Sheep [Luke 15:4-7], Lost Coin [Luke 15:8-10], Lost Son [Luke 15:11-32]” (pp. 25-70).Levine’s literal translation of the Greek text of Luke 15:4-7: “Which person among you, having a hundred sheep and losing one, will not leave behind the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost until he finds it? And finding, he puts it up on his shoulders; rejoicing. And coming into the house he calls together the friends and the neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice together with me, because I have found my sheep, the lost one.’ I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven at one sinner repenting than at ninety-nine righteous, those who have no need of repentance” (p. 25).

Crossan’s original saying of Jesus (61) [p. 103; Note, p. 162]: “The Kingdom of God is like this/ A shepherd left his entire flock/ to seek the one that strayed/ He found it, took it, brought it back,/ and rejoiced to have it safe” (Crossan’s capitalizations; I have used slash marks here to indicate the line breaks in the printed layout in Crossan’s 1994 book).

Crossan’s Note about saying (61): “It is not clear, and not necessarily to be presumed, that the shepherd endangered the ninety-nine to seek the lost one. His interest was not so much against them as for it. A preferential option for the endangered?” (Crossan’s italics).

Levine’s literal translation of Luke 15:8-10: “Or what woman, having ten drachmas, if she would lose one drachma, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek resolutely until she finds? And when she finds, she calls together (female) friends and (female) neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found the drachma, the one I had lost.’ Likewise, I say to you,

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there will be rejoicing before the angels of God at one sinner repenting” (p. 25; Levine’s parenthetical insertions).

Crossan’s original saying of Jesus (74) [p. 120; Note, p. 165]: “The Kingdom of God is like this/ A woman with ten silver coins/ lost one around the house/ She lit the lamp, she swept the floor,/ she found it and rejoiced” (Crossan’s capitalizations).

Crossan’s Note about saying (74): “It is interesting to compare this parable with that of The Lost Sheep (no. 61). Jesus is easily seen as the Good Shepherd but seldom seen as the Good Housewife.”

Levine’s literal translation of Luke 15:11-32:

Some man had two sons. And said the younger of them to the father, ‘Father, give to me the portion of the property that is falling to me.’ And he divided between them the life.

And after not many days, gathering together all, the younger son took a journey into a far region, and there he scattered the property through excessive living. And having spent all, there was a strong famine in that region, and he himself began to be in need. And going, he became joined to one of the citizens of that region, and he sent him into his field to feed pigs. And he was desiring to be filled from the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one was giving to him.

And coming to himself, he said, ‘How many hired laborers of my father are abounding of bread, but I by famine here am lost? Getting up, I shall go to my father and I shall say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; not still am I worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired laborers.”’

And rising up, he went to his father. And yet when he was far off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and running, fell upon his neck and continually kissed him.

And said the son to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; not still am I worthy to be called your son.’

And said the father to his slaves, ‘Quickly carry out a robe, the first, and put it on him, and give the ring to his hand and sandals to the feet. And bring the calf, the grain-fed one, sacrifice and, eating, we may rejoice. Because this, my son, was dead, and he came back to life; he had been lost, and was found’ And they began to rejoice.

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And his son, the elder, was in the field, and as he, coming, drew near to the house, he heard symphony and chorus. And calling over one of the servants he inquired what these things might be. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has sacrificed the grain-fed calf, because he received him healthy.’

And he became angry, and he did not want to go in. And his father, going out, comforted/urged him.

And answering, he said to his father, ‘Look, all these years I am slaving for you, and not one commandment of yours have I passed by, and for me not one young goat did you give so that with my friends I might rejoice. But when your son, this one, the one who ate up your life with whores came, you sacrificed for him the grain-fed calf.’

And he said to him, ‘Child, you always with me are, and everything that is mine is yours. But it remains necessary to cheer and to rejoice, because your brother, this one, was dead, and lived to life, and being lost, even he was found’” (pp. 25-27).

Crossan’s original saying of Jesus (62) [pp. 104-105; Note, pp. 162-163]: “A YOUNGER SON requested and received his/ inheritance, went abroad, and wasted it all. Destitute/ in the midst of famine, he envied the swill of the swine/ he tended/ The younger son:/ I will return home where servants eat their fill/ I will say to my father/ I have sinned against you and God/ I am not worthy to be your son/ I will be your hired servant/ THE FATHER saw him even before he reached the/ house, ran out, embraced, and kissed him/ The younger son:/ ‘I have sinned against you and God/ I am not worthy to be your son’/ The father:/ ‘Bring robes, and shoes, and a ring/ Prepare a great feast/ My lost son is found, my dead son is back’/ THE ELDER SON returned at evening from working in/ the fields, heard sounds of music, and asked a/ servant what was happening/ The servant:/ ‘Your brother is back and your father feasts him’/ He was angry, refused to enter the banquet hall, and/ complained when his father came out to speak with him/ The elder son:/ ‘I, who have always obeyed you, have never received a feast/ He, who has disgraced you, receives one now’/ The father:/ ‘You are with me always and mine is yours/ forever/ But now is the time for feasting/ Your lost brother is found, your dead brother is back’” (Crossan’s capitalization and italicization).

My comment on Crossan’s rendition of Jesus’ original saying (61): It strikes me as extremely unlikely that Jesus’s original saying would have included the syntactical structures (1) “I, who have always obeyed you” and (2) “He, who has disgraced you.” The gist, perhaps. But the gist would have been expressed in paratactic structures. In Ong’s 1982 book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, mentioned above, he describes orally based thought and expression as ‘[a]dditive [and paratactic] rather than subordinative” (pp. 37-38). When we turn

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our attention to Crossan’s vocabulary choices in this passage, it strikes me that “requested” and “received” and “Destitute” are rather formal expressions. The word “destitute” expresses the distinction that Crossan works with between poor and destitute.

Crossan’s Note about saying (61): “In Luke’s interpretation, the context favors the repentant younger son over the jealous elder son. My spatial presentation emphasizes all three characters and challenges hearer or reader to face the ambiguity of each of them. Is the younger son repentant or just opportunistic? Note the difference between what he plans to say and what he actually says. Is the father loving and evenhanded or indulgent and unfair? Is the elder son self-centered and envious or denigrated and rightly offended? Note that the father does not send for him before the banquet starts, and he must ask a servant what is going on. Where is the mother? Dead or ignored? Is the story told from her viewpoint, in her persona?”

Levine’s Chapter 2: “The Good Samaritan [Luke 10:25-37]” (pp. 71-106).Levine’s literal translation of Luke 10:25-37: “

And look, some lawyer stood up; testing Jesus, he says, ‘Teacher, (by) doing what eternal life will I inherit?’

And he said to him, ‘In the Law, what is written? How do you read?’

And answering, he said, ‘You will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind/intention, and your neighbor as yourself.’

And he said to him, ‘Rightly you answered. This do, and you will live.’ But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ Replying, Jesus said, ‘Some person was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who, stripping him, even placed blows, going away, leaving him half dead.

‘And by coincidence, some priest was going down that road, and seeing him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise, a Levite, coming to the place, even seeing him, passed by on the other side.’

But some Samaritan, traveling, came near him and seeing, had compassion. And coming toward (him), he bound up his wounds, pouring oil and wine (on them), and having set him upon his own animal, he brought him to an inn and cared for him.’

And upon the next day, taking out, he gave two denarii to the innkeeper and said, “take care of him, and whatever you might spend, I, upon my return, will give back to you.”

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‘Which of these three a neighbor—does it seem to you—was to the one who fell among the robbers?’

And he said, “The one doing mercy for him.”

And said to him Jesus, “Go and do likewise”’” (pp. 71-72; Levine’s parenthetical insertions).

Crossan’s original saying of Jesus (49) [p. 87; Note, p. 159]: “Bandits attacked a traveler/ along the desert stretches of the Jerusalem-Jericho/ road/ they stripped him/ they beat him/ they left him for dead/ A Priest saw him and passed by as far away as possible/ a Levite saw him and passed by as far away as possible/ A Samaritan saw him and stopped/ he cleaned/ and disinfected his wounds/ he put him on his donkey/ and brought him to an inn/ he gave the owner two denarii/ and promised to pay the rest when he/ returned.”

Crossan’s Note about saying (49): “The Priest and the Levite probably passed by thinking him dead and intending to avoid purity defilements by contact with a corpse. Up to that point the parable seems to be planning some cheap anticlericalism or facile exaltation of compassion over purity. The audience might well have expected a Jewish layperson (like themselves) to be the third and model protagonist. Instead it is a Samaritan, a member of an ethnic and religious group living between Judea and Galilee with its own version of the Pentateuch and its own religious center on Mount Garizim. They were considered by some Jews as worse than pagans, almost as renegade Jews. What happens to an audience when the story’s anti-heroes are revered members of its religious leadership and its hero belongs to a socially and religiously despised group? Who and what determines good and bad or in and out in a society? (Crossan’s italics).

Levine’s Chapter 3: “The Kingdom of Heaven Is like Yeast [Matthew 13:33]” (pp. 107-125).Levine’s literal translation of Matthew 13:33: “Similar to the kingdom of heaven is leaven that a woman, taking, hid in three measures of flour until it was leavened all” (p. 107).

Crossan’s original saying of Jesus (57) [p. 98; Note, p. 161]: “The Kingdom of God is like this/ A woman took some leaven/ hid it in her dough/ and baked a batch of bread” (Crossan’s capitalization).

Crossan’s Note about saying (57): “This, like so many of Jesus’s parables, is startling in the very analogy chosen, even before questions of interpretation and application arise. First, in a male-dominated society, the Kingdom is likened to a female activity. Next, in ancient and especially Jewish society, leaven, made from moldy bread, represents corruption. Finally, hid is a surprising verb for the woman’s action. Jesus, in other words, compares the Kingdom, once again, to something very questionable (like mustard or children) in his own social milieu” (Crossan’s capitalization and italics).

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Levine’s Chapter 4: “The Pearl of Great Price [Matthew 13:45-46]” (pp. 127-150).Levine’s literal translation of Matthew 13:45-46: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man, a merchant, seeking fine pearls; on finding one pearl of extremely great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it” (p. 127).

Crossan’s original saying of Jesus (53) [p. 93; Note, p. 160]: “The Kingdom of God is like this/ A trader sold all his merchandise to buy a single/ pearl” (Crossan’s capitalization).

Crossan’s Note about saying (53): “The parable is both brief and difficult. It seems to describe a wise if daring investment. But, then, what value is the pearl until it is traded again for more than the merchant paid for it? Is the point of the parable the wisdom of grasping the Kingdom or the impossibility of ever doing so? Or grasping it only by passing it on? Or what?” (Crossan’s capitalization).

Levine’s Chapter 5: “The Mustard Seed [Mark 4:30-32; Matthew 13:31-32; Luke 13:18-19]” (pp. 151-167).Levine’s literal translation of Mark 4:30-32: “How shall we compare the kingdom of God, or with what parable might we put it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, the smallest is of all seeds on earth. And when sown, it rises up and becomes the greatest of all vegetables, and it makes large branches, so that are able under its shadow the birds of the heaven to dwell” (p. 151).

Levine’s literal translation of Matthew 13:31-32: “Like is the kingdom of the heavens to a mustard seed, that taking, some person sowed in his field. The smallest, on the one hand, it is of all seeds, but when it has grown, greatest of the vegetables it is, and it becomes a tree, so that when come the birds of the heaven, even they dwell in its branches” (p. 151).

Levine literal translation of Luke 13:18-19: “To what is like the kingdom of God, and to what should I make it like? It is like a mustard seed, which taking, a man casts in his garden, and it grew, and became a tree, and the birds of the heaven dwelled in its branches” (p. 151).

Crossan’s original saying of Jesus (21) [p. 51; Note, p. 153]: “The Kingdom of God is mustard/ a seed small enough/ to get lost among others/ a plant large enough/ to shelter birds in its shade” (Crossan’s capitalization).

Crossan’s Note about saying (21): “Comparing the Kingdom’s process to mustard is as startling as comparing its members to children. The mustard plant had value as medicine and condiment, but it also had a dangerous tendency to take over even when deliberately and carefully cultivated, let alone if inadvertently introduced into grain fields. But consider, as always, how differently Jesus’s parables might have appeared and been discussed by day laborers who worked the fields of others, by stewards for absentee landlords, or even by landlords themselves when they heard them or heard about them” (Crossan’s capitalization).

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Levine’s Chapter 6: “The Pharisee and the Tax Collector [Luke 18:9-14]” (pp. 169-195).Because Crossan offers no original saying of Jesus that involves that parable in Luke 18:9-14, I am not going to give Levine’s literal translation of it here.

Levine’s Chapter 7: “The Laborers in the Vineyard [Matthew 20:1-16]” (pp. 197-219).Levine’s literal translation of Matthew 20:1-16:

“For is like the kingdom of the heavens to a man, a householder, who went out in the morning to hire workers for the vineyard. And agreeing with the workers for the denarius of the day, he sent them into his vineyard.

“And going out around the third hour, he saw others standing in the marketplace, without work. And to those he said, ‘You go, even you, into the vineyard, and whatever is just, I will give you.’ And they went.

“And again, going out around the sixth and also the ninth hour, he did likewise.

“And around the eleventh, going out, he found others standing, and he says to them, ‘Why here are you standing all the day without work?’

“They say to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He says to them, ‘You go, even you, into the vineyard.’

“When evening came, says the lord of the vineyard to his steward, ‘Call the workers and give to them their wage/ reward, beginning with the last ones to the first ones.’

“And coming, those around the eleventh hour, they received each a denarius.

“And coming, the first, they thought that more they would receive. And they received each a denarius, even they. And receiving, they were grumbling against the householder. They were saying, ‘These last ones one hour did, and equal to us them you have made, to the ones having borne the burden of the day and the burning heat.’

And answering one of them he said, ‘Friend, not do I harm you. Did not for a denarius you agree with me? Take what is yours and go. And I wish to this one, to the last one, to give as even to you. [Or] is it not permitted to me what I wish to do with what is mine? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’

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“Thus will be the last first and the first last” (pp. 197-198; bracketed material added by Levine).

Crossan’s original saying of Jesus (87) [p. 137; Note, p. 168]: “The Kingdom of God is like this/ At six in the morning a householder hired laborers/ for his vineyard/ promising them one denarius for the day’s work/ An nine, noon, three, and five he hired some more/ promising them a fair wage/ at six in the evening, the laborers were paid:/ those hired last were paid one denarius/ those hired first expected much more/ but they too received only one denarius” (Crossan’s capitalization).

Crossan’s Note about saying (87): “It is hard to imagine a parable more calculated to raise hackles on an audience of the poor and destitute, for example, on day laborers themselves. First, the householder seems to be stingy and mean, since he hires five different times during the day rather than hiring all he can find in the morning. He spaces out his hiring to fit the work’s progress. Second, the term ‘idle’ is twice used of those waiting to be hired in the marketplace. Third, he clearly pays each one enough, but his action seems to underline their dependence on him rather than his generosity. It is close to capriciousness and contempt rather than kindliness and consideration. Why, if one wants to be generous, not pay each proportionately? But once again, in an interactive audience situation, this story would have served to start a fierce discussion on, say, peasants and aristocrats, workers and owners, equality, generosity, and egalitarianism. And on how humanity and divinity operate.”

Levine’s Chapter 8: “The Widow and the Judge [Luke 18:1-8]” (pp. 221-245).Levine’s literal translation of Luke 18:1-8: “And he said a parable to them concerning their necessity always to pray and not to become discouraged, saying,

Some judge was in some city; God was he not fearing, and people was he not respecting. And a widow was in that city. And she kept coming to him, saying, Avenge/grant me justice against my adversary.

And not did he wish at the time. But after these things, he said to himself, “If even God I do not fear nor people do I respect, yet on account of the trouble this widow causes, I will avenge her, so that not into the end, coming, she will wear me out/give me a black eye.”

And said the Lord, ‘Hear what the unjust judge says. And will not God make vengeance to his elect, those who cry to him day and night, and will he be patient upon them? I say to you that he will avenge them swiftly. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, then will he find faith upon the earth?’ (p. 221).

Crossan’s original saying of Jesus (92) [p. 143; Note, p. 170]: “A widow with no shame confronted a judge with no/ conscience/ Time and again she pleaded for vindication before him/ He finally gave in because, even if ethics did not/ bother him, she did.”

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Crossan’s Note about saying (92): “This could be taken, in accord with Luke 18:1, as advocating unremitting prayer to God. Its image, however, is not exactly appropriate in that context. Hear it instead in its own literal situation where, in a world of male dominance, widows (and orphans) are peculiarly susceptible to injustice and oppression.”

Levine’s Chapter 9: “The Rich Man and Lazarus [Luke 16:19-31]” (pp. 247-273).Levine’s literal translation of Luke 16:19-31:

And some person was wealthy, and he dressed in purple and linen, feasting daily, splendidly. And some poor person, named Lazarus, was lying by the gates, being (covered with) sores. And he was wishing to be fed from the things falling from the table of the wealthy, but rather the dogs, coming, were licking his sores.

And it happened that when died the poor man and he was brought by the angels into the bosom of Abraham, and also died the wealthy, and he was buried. And in Hades, raising his eyes, being in torment, he sees Abraham from a distance and Lazarus in his bosom. And he himself calling out said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus so that he might dip the tip of his finger into water and cool my tongue, because I am suffering in this flame.’

And said Abraham, ‘Child, do you remember that you received your good in your life, and Lazarus likewise the bad. And now here he is being comforted, but you are in pain. And in all these things between us and you a great chasm stands, so that the ones wishing to cross over from here to you are not able, nor from there to us can one cross over.’

And he said, ‘I ask you, therefore, Father, so that you might send him to the house of my father. For I have five brothers, so that he might witness to them, in order that not will they come to this place of torment.’

And says Abraham, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them.’

And he said, ‘Not, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead would come to them, they would repent.’

And he said to him, ‘If to Moses and to the prophets not do they listen, neither if someone from the dead would rise would they be persuaded’” (pp. 247-248; Levine’s parenthetical insertion).

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Crossan’s original saying of Jesus (91) [p. 142; Note, p. 170]: “Inside the house a rich man dressed luxuriously and/ feasted sumptuously every day/ Outside the house a poor man lay covered with sores/ and begged the garbage from the rich man’s table/ The poor man died and was taken up to the arms of/ Abraham/ The rich man died and was taken down to the horrors/ of Hades/ The rich man asked Abraham to send the poor man to/ his aid but Abraham replied:/ You once had everything and he nothing/ He now has everything and you nothing/ And between you both is a chasm impassable.”

Crossan’s Note about saying (91): “The story details an absolute reversal of fortune between the rich man (sometimes called Dives) and the poor man, Lazarus. The yawning chasm between them in this world is mirrored by another in the next world. The story, moreover, never says that Dives was evil and Lazarus virtuous. It is simply that the haves and have-nots here become the have-not and haves there. Hear the text, as always, in interactive discussion with an audience composed primarily of poor people.”

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