Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed

by William R. Herzog II

William Herzog shows that the focus of the parables was not on a vision of the glory of the reign of God but on the gory details of the way oppression served the interests of the ruling class. The parables were a form of social analysis, as well as a form of theological reflection. Herzog scrutinizes their canonical form to show the distinction between its purpose for Jesus and for evangelists. To do this, he uses the tools of historical criticism, including form criticism and redaction criticism.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Christianity, New Testament, Biblical Studies, Nonfiction, Politics

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Greg Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an experiment by Herzog in the interpretation of Jesus' parables. The inspiration for this experiment is the work of Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator whose claim to fame was teaching 300 poor sugar-cane workers to read and write in just 45 days. One part of Freire's literacy program was to create stories ("codifications") that depicted "moments from the daily life of the oppressed" and use them to help his students "read" and respond to the world in which they lived. Herzog's experiment in this book is to interpret a selected set of parables as "codifications" of the world in which Jesus lived.

This is definitely a weird approach to parable interpretation. However, it does make some sense in that Jesus' parables were grounded in the world of his audience, poor Galilean peasants who were definitely oppressed by both the Romans and the Temple hierarchy in Jerusalem. As such, I agree with Herzog's title that Jesus' parables were "subversive speech". Many of the parables are open-ended, inviting us to think through their implications. And they definitely spoke truth to power, which ultimately led to Jesus' execution.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I give it 4 stars, because it is well-written and engaging. It kept my interest throughout. I feel that one strong point of the book is its discussion of agrarian society in the first century and how that affected the life of a peasant. It is essential to have some understanding of that when interpreting Jesus' parables. Without that understanding, we can miss the point of a parable by reading our own world and culture back into the parable.

I found Herzog's reading of the selected parables to be interesting and even insightful, even when I disagreed with them. However, because he is reading each parable as a "codification" of Galilean peasant life, his interpretations are always based on class struggle. So it can begin to sound like a Marxist interpretation of Jesus' parables after a while :-)

However, I fundamentally disagree with Herzog's approach to interpreting the parables. Like much modern Biblical scholarship, Herzog distrusts the context and interpretation of the Jesus' parables found in the Gospels. As such, he spends time trying to discern the original historical context "behind" each parable as presented in the Gospels. The problem with this is that it is impossible to get "behind" the Gospels to the origins of each parable or story by means of source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, or any other type of criticism. The result of that has always been to remake Jesus and his teachings into our own image. I think a better approach is read the parables in the context of the documents we have. It is true that each Gospel has its own set of emphases but they all tell the same story more or less. So there is no need to distrust the motives of the Gospel writers in their placement or interpretation of Jesus' parables.

I would not recommend this book to anyone who will be upset by scholarly Biblical interpretations that are not based on faith. However, if you find modern Biblical scholarship interesting and want to read a radically different take on Jesus' parables, this is the book for you. Even though I disagreed with the author's approach, I was able to gain new insight into some of the parables through this experiment. So all in all, I'm glad I read this book.

In the conclusion, Herzog writes:
"One clear implication of this study is that Jesus' ministry was concerned with political and economic issues. Matters of justice were not peripheral to a spiritual gospel but were at the heart of his proclamation and practice. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that justice was at the center of Jesus' spirituality. It is a conceit of the North American church that Jesus was not involved in politics and economics but limited himself to spiritual matters. Although this view may allow some the luxury of limiting ministry to so-called spiritual needs, it violates the fundamental practice of Jesus."

I whole-heartedly agree.

[Luke Wagner · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Herzog draws on the work of educator Paulo Freire to argue that Jesus’ “parables were not earthly stories with heavenly meanings but earthy stories with heavy meanings, weighted down by an awareness of the workings of exploitation in the world of their hearers” (3). Herzog provides highly original readings of the parables that are attuned to the social and political landscape of first-century Palestine. For Herzog, the parables “were meant to be discussion-starters, whose purpose was to raise questions and pose dilemmas for their hearers” (259), and not necessarily to teach about the reign of God or instruct individuals on how they were to live.

Although I was not ultimately convinced by many of his interpretations, I appreciated Herzog’s attempt to interpret the parables in light of Jesus’ public ministry and his execution at the hands of Roman and Judean authorities. Ultimately, I am not sure Herzog or any of us have figured out the parables of Jesus, but I know that I will not read the parables the same way after reading this book—and for that reason, I’m glad I read it.

[Deborah Brunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.
Novel exploration of Jesus parables as a method of waking up peasants to their oppression. Herzog does an excellent job at demonstrating these parables as stated by the historical Jesus were stories of known relationships of oppression in his own day rather than the spiritualised metaphors we are used to understanding. These ideas support Jesus reading of Torah in the prophetic tradition and sought to remind people of God's justice, which due to current oppressive systems was not being implemented.

[Danielle Isbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dense theological book that reorients the purpose of the parables in an important way. Reopens the parables to new possibilities centered in the questions and dilemmas of daily life

[Glen Grunau · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems to me that one of the most tragic outcomes of a life-long familiarity with the Scriptures is a loss of the sense of the mystery of the writings. That we would no longer be surprised by the audacity of some of the teachings of Jesus, comfortable in our historic interpretations to the point of indifference.

This rather dense work of theology impressed me on several levels and served it’s worth well, despite at times being rather laborious in its reading. It's now up to you whether or not you choose to read my lengthy and possibly laborious book review.

I was introduced to this book this past November when I happened to be attending Highland Community Church in Abbotsford, BC. Preaching on that day was Daphne Kamphuis. She selected the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25. I have always understood that the man who entrusted the wealth to his servants was a figure for God the Father. Yet I had never really faced how disturbing it was to me that the man who buried his talent in the ground was deemed "wicked and lazy" and assigned to darkness where "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" - simply for being fearful.

This was definitely not good news for someone like me who tends to avoid risks out of fear and anxiety. A god like this is definitely a god to be feared and sounds less and less like the God that I have come to know in recent years! Furthermore, I have always believed that this parable has served as a solid endorsement of sound capitalistic investment strategies - an economic philosophy that is wide open to the exploitation that has served to increasingly widen the gap between the rich and the poor in our world.

So when Daphne used this book and the teaching of Richard Rohr as the primary sources for her sermon, I definitely came to attention. I was profoundly impacted by her sermon and met with her after the service to obtain the reference and rush out to buy and read it.

An extensive and diverse representation of parables were sampled for review in this treatise. The end result was that my interpretations of these parables were challenged and any lingering certainty that I had a complete grasp on the rich meaning of Jesus’ parables, was ultimately relieved.

I was impressed that the author resisted any temptation to offer his own interpretations with certainty, simply satisfied to open the field for the reader. In fact, his belief is that Jesus’ intention was to use his parables as conversation starters rather than moral stories with a single meaning that could be gleaned by a correct understanding. Herzog's intention in writing his book was similarly to raise more questions than answers. When one thinks about it, this might be considered the aim of any good quality education.

A helpful contribution of this work was the persuasive suggestion that the king or ruler represented in several of these parables was not the Father in Heaven, as has often been assumed by many theologians and preachers, but rather an unjust ruler guilty of exploiting the poor. This should be no surprise given that the “master” in many of the parables is obviously a human aristocrat or landowner. To believe otherwise, leaves unaddressed a number of apparent discrepancies and contradictions (such as the one that I note above in the parable of the talents).

I found the underlying thesis of this book persuasive. That many of Jesus’ parables were his attempt to subvert the exploitation of the peasant class by the temple and the state. When reminded of how often Jesus talked about money in his parables, the compassion he had for the poor and destitute, and his passionate opposition to the corruption of the temple money changers, should this emphasis be any surprise?

As suggested above, the decision of whether to designate the ruler in the parable as a righteous God or a wealthy and at times exploitative landowner, will influence the stance of the parable on capitalistic ideology. It should not escape our attention that the majority of theologians and pulpiteers that have influenced our interpretation of Jesus’ parables have been solidly immersed in the world of western capitalism and complicit in its shortcomings. Whether we assign righteousness or unrighteousness to the lead characters of the parables will have huge implication for how we interpret these parables and the life lessons we take from them.

For example, in the new American Standard Bible, the parable in Luke 16 is designated by the Bible translators as the parable of “The Unrighteous Steward”. Herzog describes the lengths to which some commentators go to imbue the master with the goodness of a righteous God while vilifying the steward as lazy and deceitful. Herzog suggests the following:

Much of the comment on the parable assumes a simple moral code and judges the steward by it. Most of the sins ascribed to him are those that belong properly to a capitalistic framework. . . . They assume an economic morality rooted in capitalistic ideology, and therefore the commentators all side with the master and blame the steward for cheating the master by participating in some first-century version of a savings and loan scandal. In fact, the steward was just doing his job, and the charges brought against him are just a normal part of the endless war between the landowners and the peasants.

According to the Torah, usury (charging excessive interest on loans) was strictly forbidden because it was oppressive. Herzog suggests that it is unlikely that Jesus would in his day endorse securing interest on loans as commendable practice. And yet this is what we have done consistently in our modern era with the parable of the talents.

Herzog succeeds in compelling the reader to question long and un-challenged interpretations of this and many of Jesus’ parables. I am indebted to him for opening my eyes, at least to the possibility of such alternate interpretations, and reassuring me that Jesus was adamantly opposed to the economic exploitation of the poor. Help me Jesus to know my part to play in subverting such injustice in our day as you did in yours.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is simply the BEST book out there that will relate the meaning and message of Jesus' life to the modern world. It strips away all of the fairy tale nonsense and gives the reader an unvarnished look at the massively oppressive feudal agrarian civilization of Jesus' time, and very lucidly details His response. It treats Jesus appropriately as an agrarian Jew, devout and steeped in that tradition and interprets His parables within THAT context, rather than through the later Christian church's insistence that the brutal and oppressive Kings and wealthy landowners in the stories are always God.
I challenge any reader not to make the association of life then and life today and not come away with the conviction that Jesus, regardless of supernatural identity or divine birth, was absolutely dead on in his vision of what the world IS, what it COULD BE and HOW TO GET THERE.
I am telling you, READ THIS BOOK.

[Jed · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the theologizing is removed from the parables of Jesus as they appear in the synoptic gospels, we are left with something which would probably have been understood far differently in 1st century Palestine than we do today, with our spiritualized interpretations. This book made me reconsider what what most Christians (even the ethical, well-meaning, generous kind) are doing actually bears any relationship to what Jesus was doing.

[Erik Champenois · Rating 3 out of 5]

Herzog's book analyzes the social setting of the parables of Jesus - providing background on the agrarian setting of the time and analyzing the roles of parable figures including peasants, merchants, rulers, toll collectors, etc. In the process Herzog shows how parables spoke to people in their own language on issues of social justice and morality - showing how Jesus' preaching of the kingdom of God cannot be divorced from social/political/economic concerns. This approach also seeks to take the parables back to Jesus' time - i.e., closer to original meanings and contexts before being incorporated with sometimes changed meanings into the Gospels. Though it should be noted that Herzog sees the parables more as "discussion-starters, whose purpose was to raise questions and pose dilemmas for their hearers" rather than necessarily having one correct interpretation alone.

I find myself both convinced of the utility of this analysis but also skeptical. Understanding the social context of the time can help one understand the parables better and in some cases adds depth to the social justice part of Jesus' message. But in some cases I wondered whether the in depth analysis of social details wasn't distracting from what were really just stories whose meanings aren't so deep that social analysis adds anything. While in other cases it is possible that the parables reflect not the agrarian setting of Jesus and should therefore not be turned around to other meanings than what the Gospel writers intended. After all, the Gospel writers themselves were surely not peasants - being highly educated and able to write in Greek - and if some of the parables were original to them rather than to Jesus then an agrarian/lower class setting might result in misinterpretation.

I also would have wished for further connections between the social world of the parables and analysis of the historical Jesus and social justice concerns outside of the parables. There is much in the New Testament outside of the parables to show Jesus' concerns with social and wealth inequality - statements about the poor being blessed, it being harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, and his overall concerns for the downtrodden and critiques of elites. While Herzog's book was laser focused on the parables themselves, further connections between the sayings and doings of Jesus and the parables would surely add to an understanding of both. Additionally, I think it is important to properly analyze Jesus' social justice concerns and his eschatological preaching of the kingdom of God together - as analyzing one apart from the other presents an incomplete picture as well.

My thoughts here are admittedly somewhat tentative for what I find an otherwise worthwhile book. I feel like I need to read more books on the parables of Jesus - including Meier's book as part of his "Marginal Jew" series - before I can arrive at better conclusions or properly assess the value of Herzog's contributions. The social setting of the parables is undoubtedly important, even though an incomplete approach.

[Ryan Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Herzog argues that in order to understand the parables of Jesus, we have to understand the social, political, and economic conditions of ancient Palestine. His analysis does not treat the parables as timeless lessons about eternity and God, but as explicit codifications of the oppressive and exploitative systems that his hearers were victims of. By showing these systems for what they were, he meant to open his follower's eyes to the reality of their world as a means to helping them envision and enact a new world. He referred to this new system of life, love, equity, and justice, as the kingdom of God. This is a groundbreaking study which foregrounds Jesus' ministry and mission in the everyday struggles and oppression of his followers, not as a prophet of some intangible, future eternal reward.

[Stephen Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Refreshing study of the social/political context of the parables.

[M.J. Perry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't bother. Mine is going into the recycling because I don't want to inflict it on anyone else.

[Julian Munoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read for any christian

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Herzog presents a compelling argument that the Parables of Jesus are best understood when taken out of the interpretive context they were placed in by the four writers of the canonical Gospels and seen in the context of peasant life in an advanced agrarian society.

Recognizing that Jesus and his original community were Jewish peasants in 1st Century Galilee within the Roman Empire enables us to understand the social roles that each of the characters in the Parables would have played. These characters had histories and relationships that all 1st Century Jewish Peasants in Galilee would have understood immediately without the details being spelled out explicitly. As Post-Industrial working class Westerners, though, we have to put that bigger picture together in order to accurately understand their original meanings. Herzog utilizes the latest sociological research to do just that for nine parables. The insights he derives are convincing, profound and revolutionary in the field of New Testament Studies.

In 1st Century Galilee, wealthy Jewish aristocrats were taking advantage of the hardship of local Jewish peasants by offering them predatory loans, foreclosing on their land and hiring them to work it at less than subsistence wages. Most peasants sank gradually into the class of expendables and beggars. While the elites competed with one another to see who could host the most conspicuous displays of luxury and self-indulgence, they nevertheless remained scrupulous about tithing and purity codes. If one was lucky, one was made a retainer for a wealthy household. Retainers represented their patrons to the peasants and were the targets of almost all the peasant resentment and retaliation. These are the familiar characters of Jesus' parables.

In real life Galilee, peasants and aristocrats would never encounter one another. The creative brilliance of several Parables lies in their ability to expose the hidden tensions that underlie this society. They call upon their peasant audiences to imagine scenarios where these largely-segregated classes are forced to confront one another, with surprising results.

At first I was skeptical of Herzog's use of Paulo Freire as a model to help us understand what Jesus may have been doing in teaching with parables. Imposing our own favorite anachronistic concepts onto Jesus is one of the most notorious errors of Historical Jesus Research. Herzog,  though, makes a strong case for careful,  responsible and always tentative attempts toward "modernizing" Jesus. The danger of not modernizing Jesus is, in his view, an irrelevant Jesus. After reading his case, outlining both the similarities and the differences between the work of Jesus and the work of Freire, I feel his comparison is a useful one.

This is a book that I have read twice and look forward to reading many times more.

[David Campton · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been good, after a long gap to take a deep plunge into parable studies again. This one, ironically, given that it uses Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed as an interpretative model, is an unashamed academic analysis. Indeed its tendency of omitting the actual text of the parables being studied, suggested the book's origin as some form of academic thesis with a strict word count. This, together with the unnecessarily academic language and structure will have reduced the impact of this book, but then I suspect that the much earlier, much quoted, Jeremias text, would nor have been so influential without the radically editted popular version. This thesis has much to offer, not least the repeated reminder that the socio-economic context was not the capitalism of the modern west, nor the polis of the Graeco-Roman world, but a particular agrarian society shaped, in part, by their reading of the Torah, and that the role of the parable was not necessarily answer the questions that are sometimes used as the pretext for their settings in the Gospel accounts, but to begin a conversation... I do not however, fully buy in to the readings offered, largely shorn of all eschatology/soteriology. To me this devalues the integrity of the oral tradition but also maintains our misunderstanding of the kingdom/reign of God which the Gospel contexts repeatedly refer to, which should be understood not primarily as a theology devoid of political implications, but speaking into the contemporary socio-economic context and providing a contrast to both imperial Roman rule as experienced in 1st century Palestine and the selective application of the rule of Law/Torah as applied by the religious elite. Not only the parables but allusions to jubilee-focused prophecy suggests that Herzog is correct in identifying the highly politicised pedagogical purpose of the parables but has perhaps gone too far in anachronistically seeking to minimise the eschatological/soteriological content.

[Drick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Using Freire's concept of "reading the world" Herzog uses the parables as a window into the social and political world of Jesus. His analysis via the parables is tied with anthropological and historical studies of Agrarian societies in ancient times. As such his reading of the parables is often quite different than traditional understanding. Even if one does not agree with Herzog's interpretation, there is alot to be learned about the social world of Jesus and his followers.

[Brent Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book but highly ideological. I'm a fan of both historical Jesus and Paulo Freire, but the critical theory got a little dense. Was hoping for more focus on fresh readings of the parables, which we eventually got to.