A Critique of Liberal Scholarship - Part 5 - A critique of Jeremias's interpretation of the parable of the Pounds (Luke 19:11–27)

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1996.

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Editor's note: This article is one part of a multi-part series which David Gooding wrote to critique in a scholarly way some of the work of a number of liberal scholars. The series comprises:

1. Can following liberal scholarship lead to a loss of faith?
2. Following liberal scholarship can lead to biased research
3. Observations on Herman Hendrickx's 'The Accounts of the Resurrection'
4. Observations on the interpretation of parables given by liberal scholars
5. A critique of Jeremias's interpretation of the parable of the Pounds (Luke 19:11–27)
6. A critique of Joachim Jeremias's interpretation of Mark 4
7. A critique of Haenchen's attempt to use Acts 1:9–11 as support for the theory of the delayed Parousia
8. A critique of Jeremias's interpretation of the parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1–8)
9. A critique of Beare's interpretation of the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31)

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A basic principle of true literary criticism is that, if an author introduces into his novel, play or parable a character who voices certain ideas, it is neither fair nor sensible to suppose that these ideas necessarily represent the author's views. The author may well have wished to voice some ideas with which he himself strongly disagrees; he therefore puts them into the mouth of one of his characters in order to expose their falsity, and not in order to recommend them as the author's views.

This is such a basic principle of true literary criticism that to overlook it, and to suppose that what a character in a parable says necessarily represents the views of the author, would be an elementary mistake of the first magnitude. And yet, in his determination to prove that Luke has misrepresented Christ's original meaning in the parable of the Pounds, Jeremias makes this elementary mistake, as we shall now see.

The parable of the Pounds tells how ten servants are each entrusted with a pound to be used in commerce during their lord's absence. Nine of the servants use their pounds diligently and well; but one servant is wicked and slothful and refuses to work with his pound. Asked to explain why he has not traded with his pound like the others, he gives his reasons as follows: 'Lord . . . I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that which thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow'. In other words, the servant is accusing his master of being a man who is always expecting something for nothing: expecting to reap a harvest without having first put in any seed, and to pick up profits without first having made any investment.

Now we all are agreed that, as Luke tells the parable, there are several allegorical elements in it: the nobleman who went into a far country to receive a kingdom and to return, is meant to represent our Lord, who has departed by the ascension into heaven in order to receive his kingdom and then to return; at which time he shall call his servants to give account of their stewardship. The unfaithful servant of the parable, then, is meant as a picture of a professing servant of Christ who has, during the period of Christ's absence, refused to work for him. That such a servant, when called to explain his refusal to work, should put the blame on Christ is certainly astounding; that he should charge Christ with being someone who always expects something for nothing is almost incredible. How has he no sense of all the thousand-and-one good gifts that Christ bestows on those who trust and follow him? Had he never received such gifts?

We may care to look at another story, which Luke has placed at the beginning of this particular section of his Gospel: the story of the Ten Lepers (Luke 17:11–19). All ten lepers received the gift of cleansing, but nine of them felt no sense of having received so great a gift that it merited their returning to give Christ any thanks for it. And that is the way with ingratitude: very soon it forgets that it has received any gift at all. And so it was too with the unfaithful servant in the parable: indeed, if we have read Luke's intention aright, the very structure of this section was meant to focus on the sin of ingratitude. (See David Gooding, According to Luke, Part 2, Stage 4)

At the same time, the theme of the second coming of Christ is likewise prominent in this section: see Luke 17:22–37; 18:8, 30; and our parable, Luke 19:11–12, 15ff.

But if that is what Luke has intended us to see, Jeremias says, Luke is quite wrong in intending us to see it. Let us hear one of Jeremias's reasons for saying so:

Luke, then, would seem to have interpreted the nobleman who received a kingdom and demanded a reckoning from his servants on his return, as the Son of Man departing to heaven and returning to judgment. But Luke is certainly wrong. For it is hardly conceivable that Jesus would have compared himself, either with a man who 'drew out where he had not paid in, and reaped where he had not sown' (Luke 19:21), that is a rapacious man, heedlessly intent on his own profit: or with a brutal oriental despot, gloating over the sight of his enemies slaughtered before his eyes (Luke 19:27: emprosthen mou). (The Parables of Jesus, revised edition, SCM Press, 1972, pp. 59–60)

Here then are two objections. The second one raises the matter of how our Lord will execute the judgment of God on the impenitent. It is a theological, and not a merely literary, question, and for that reason I do not comment on it here, except to observe that the bit about 'a brutal despot gloating over the sight of his enemies being slaughtered' is additional colouring that Jeremias's own vivid imagination has gratuitously added to the much more sober wording of the parable.

But we must look carefully at the first objection, because that is solely a literary matter. Jesus, says Jeremias, would not have compared himself with a rapacious man who reaped where he had not sown, and therefore he cannot have spoken the parable in its present form; for if he did, he would have likened himself to a rapacious man.

But this objection is nonsense. It rests on a complete fallacy and misconception. An author who introduces a character into a play or parable saying this or that is not to be thought of as himself holding the view that he puts into the mouth of the character.

Are we to suppose that the fact that Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice means that Shakespeare regarded as true and right every sentiment expressed by Shylock? Is Sophocles to be thought of as regarding as true everything that he has put into the mouth of Creon in Antigone? If Jesus introduces into a parable a character who says that Jesus is an unreasonable despot, that cannot be taken as implying that Jesus himself is likening himself to an unreasonable despot. All that it can be taken to mean is that Jesus is realistically pointing to the fact that there are people, even among those who profess to be his servants, whose indolence declares, even if their lips do not, that they think his demands are those of an unreasonable tyrant. It is no argument at all against Christ's having spoken the parable of the Pounds in the form that Luke has recorded it, that Christ has introduced into the parable a character who held such views against himself.

Jeremias's reasoning, therefore, is fallacious. But how, we may ask, did a scholar of world rank come to commit such an error? It would seem that he was so sure that his unproved presuppositions and theories were right, and that Luke was therefore by definition wrong, that when he came to this parable he was looking for evidence to prove that Luke was wrong. And because he was looking for it, he thought he had found it; and on that basis did not hesitate to claim that here was evidence that proved Luke was wrong—when all the while it was not Luke who was wrong. It was Jeremias, who was committing an elementary mistake in literary criticism that even a schoolboy would be rebuked for. Not for nothing does God say, 'He takes the wise in their own craftiness' (1 Cor. 3:18–20).

But hear Jeremias once more: 'If we discard these ethical and allegorizing expansions, there lies before us the story of a rich man, feared by his servants as an inconsiderate and rapacious employer' (p. 60).

According to Jeremias, Luke has expanded quite wrongly the original parable spoken by Jesus. But we must protest. In Luke's version of the parable, only one of the servants feared his master as an inconsiderate and rapacious man. But according to Jeremias's reconstruction of the original, the rich man was 'feared by his servants'. Note the plural—by all of them, apparently. So now who is it that is doing the expanding? This much we can say: if Jeremias's methods of literary criticism are legitimate, we could all rewrite the parables to make them mean whatever we wanted them to mean; and then we could claim, like Jeremias does, that our rewritten versions all represent Jesus' original version. And nothing would be impossible to us.