Rumors of Resistance

Status Reversals and Hidden Transcripts in the Gospel of Luke

Amanda C. Miller, Amanda C. Miller

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781451469356
• eBook ISBN: 9781451484274
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

James C. Scott's discussion of "hidden transcripts" of defiance or resistance among subordinate groups has been taken up in suggestive ways by scholars who claim to detect elements of defiant transcripts in or behind Paul's letters. Now, in Rumors of Resistance, Amanda C. Miller uses Scott's theory to explain tensions within the narrative of the Gospel of Luke, between more accommodationist narratives and poetic or parabolic passages that announce a dramatic eschatological reversal (the Magnificat in 1: 46-55, the Sermon at Nazareth in 4: 16-30, and the Parable of Lazarus and the rich man in 16: 19-30). Miller's use of sociorhetorical analysis leads her to conclude that Luke's audience would have been challenged to resist the dominant values of Roman imperial culture even as the narrative framework of Luke partially obscures that "transcript."

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The Nazareth Proclamation: Nuancing Resistance

This text, almost universally acknowledged as “programmatic” in the Gospel of Luke, stands at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, just as Mary’s song stood at the beginning of his life. Both of these texts send a clear message about the identity of Jesus of Nazareth and the mission he is about to fulfill, and both center on images of status reversal. The prominence of these themes of leveling and inversion marks the presence of previously hidden resistance being made partially public in the theology and worldview of the Gospel of Luke, and a hope that the communities reading the Lukan narrative will embody its alternative social relationships. James C. Scott writes, “When we manipulate any social classification imaginatively—turning it inside out and upside down—we are forcibly reminded that it is to some degree an arbitrary human creation.”^[1]

Indeed, in both the Magnificat and the Nazareth proclamation, the human and arbitrary nature of the Roman imperial hierarchy is highlighted particularly by the focus on God as the author of the reversals that must transpire in order to transform the empire of Rome into the empire of God—the “year approved by the Lord” (Luke 4:19). The identity of God in Lukan theology is the source of its foundational threats to Greco-Roman social, economic, and ethical ideals.^[2] The Magnificat introduced Luke’s readers to this concept, but the Nazareth proclamation develops and nuances it significantly. The status reversals defined by Jesus in Luke 4:16-30 begin with traditional non-elite hidden transcripts, but then proceed to challenge their adherents to embrace the basic ideals of equality and justice even more completely.^[3] A major function of the Nazareth proclamation is to nuance the Christian communities’ definition of status reversal, its intended beneficiaries, and its concrete application in their relationships with one another.

The Nazareth proclamation occurs in the middle of Luke 4, the first chapter that focuses exclusively on the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Chapter 3 belongs mainly to John the Baptist, with Jesus’ baptism narrated in only two verses (Luke 3:21-22). It is followed immediately by the tracing of Jesus’ ancestry from Joseph back to “Adam, the son of God” (3:38), providing verification of Jesus’ true identity for the benefit of the reader (cf. 1:32-35). At the beginning of Luke 4, as one final act of preparation for public ministry, Jesus follows the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested and tempted by the devil (4:13). Only after this does the third evangelist narrate Jesus’ return to the familiar region of Galilee (4:14-15), and more specifically to his hometown Nazareth (4:16), to begin his work.^[4] There, Jesus uses a synagogue reading from the prophet Isaiah to inaugurate his mission of status reversal: an act empowered by the Spirit, defined by preaching good news to the poor, and designed to transform the world in accordance with God’s vision of favor, worth, and acceptability (4:18-21). He then pushes the issue even further by challenging the Nazareth congregation’s assumptions about his hometown loyalty and adding the images of Elijah helping a Gentile widow and Elisha healing a Syrian warrior (4:23-27). The Nazarenes’ reaction to Jesus’ proclamation and its unexpected twists is at first mixed (4:22), and then later, in the climax of the story, decidedly united in anger and attempted violence (4:28-30).

The story of Jesus receiving a less-than-enthusiastic welcome from his neighbors in Nazareth is not, of course, unique to Luke’s Gospel. Mark 6:1-6 and Matt. 13:54-58 also record him teaching in the local synagogue, facing questions about his parentage, referencing the saying that prophets are not acceptable in their hometowns, and ultimately being unable or unwilling to perform significant signs for the people there. Beyond this framework, though, Luke is entirely alone in his narration of the Isaiah reading, the content of Jesus’ teaching, the references to Elijah and Elisha, and the violent reaction of the townspeople. Additionally, the Matthean and Markan versions place the Nazareth visit in the middle of Jesus’ ministry, not at the beginning as Luke’s story does. This change is almost certainly a Lukan narrative device to highlight the significance of this episode.^[5] But beyond this conclusion (which itself is an educated guess rather than a certainty), source criticism has not produced a consensus opinion.^[6] Our concern in this project, however, is mainly with the final form of Luke 4:16-30 and what it might have meant to the Gospel’s earliest audiences.

On this level, scholars have often recognized and studied the theme of reversal in the Nazareth proclamation. Certainly the status reversals in the Isaiah quotation have been noted, particularly for their connections to the traditional Year of Jubilee.^[7] But this story also contains a powerful reversal of expectations, specifically the expectations of the Nazarenes about who Jesus was and what it meant for him to proclaim the fulfillment of the Isaiah passage. Using Jesus’ illustrations from the lives of Elijah and Elisha, scholars have almost always outlined this conflict in terms of the sometimes difficult relationship between Jews and Gentiles in the time of Jesus, as well as in the time of Luke and his reading communities. Jesus’ teaching in the Nazareth synagogue and the angry reaction of its congregation have been interpreted in various ways: as a foreshadowing of the Gentile mission undertaken in the book of Acts;^[8] as a warning to the Jewish nation not to rely too heavily upon their privileged position as the chosen people;^[9] as a challenge issued to the Jewish people to accept Gentiles if they themselves want to be accepted in the reign of God;^[10] and as a call for early Christian communities to embrace fully the act of regular table fellowship between Jews and Gentiles.^[11]

Certainly all these studies have their merits, for the Jewish-Gentile relationship is an important part of the unexpected inclusiveness that Jesus proclaims in Nazareth to be a part of his mission. But it is not the only significant barrier that is broken down in Luke 4:16-30. Social and economic issues are also prominent in both the Isaiah quotation and Jesus’ ensuing comments upon it, something that is recognized much less often in the scholarly body of work. Joel Green argues that the poor to whom the good news is to be proclaimed (4:18) are not only economically destitute, but also

those who are for any of a number of socio-religious reasons relegated to positions outside the boundaries of God’s people. . . . Jesus indicates his refusal to recognize those socially determined boundaries, asserting instead that even these ‘outsiders’ are the objects of divine grace. . . . God has opened a way for them to belong to God’s family.^[12]

From this starting point, I will explore in this chapter not only the Jewish-Gentile relationship, but also the various other types of boundaries and divisions addressed in the Nazareth proclamation and delineate how they might have been heard by the Christian churches first reading the Gospel of Luke. I will first turn to intertextual considerations, specifically the compiled quotation of Isaiah 58 and 61 in Luke 4:18-19 and its relationship to the Year of Jubilee and other ancient festivals of status reversal. In the second section, I will consider our pericope in light of Scott’s model of hidden transcripts of resistance and elaborate the nuances of the social and spiritual transformation that the biblical text envisages. Finally, I will trace the development of these themes throughout the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, and their possible impact in Luke’s earliest reading communities.

Intertextuality: Isaiah and Ancient Celebrations of Reversal

In the previous chapter, we profitably compared the Magnificat with other songs of victory and reversal from the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Greco-Roman literature. With regard to Luke 4:16-30, however, the task of intertextual exploration will take a slightly different form. Here, instead of genre comparisons, we must consider several Septuagint passages that the Lukan Jesus quotes, references, and alludes to in his proclamation to the people of Nazareth. Most prominent among these is his extended reading from the final chapters of Isaiah, incorporating parts of Isa. 61:1-2 and one line from Isa. 58:6. I will argue that this quotation invokes not only these specific lines as central to Jesus’ ministry and the “year of God’s favor” (Luke 4:19), but also the wider context of these chapters from Trito-Isaiah and the Torah texts that they themselves echo (Leviticus 25 in particular).

The citation of Hebrew Bible or, more correctly, Septuagint passages in the New Testament is a complex topic, with many factors that must be considered in order to understand fully each quotation and allusion. Richard Hays identifies five factors that can affect its meaning: the author’s intentions in including the quotation, the original audience’s understanding of it, the intertextual “fusion” in the text itself, the interpretation of the modern reader, and the interpretation of the modern community of readers. Rather than choosing one or two on which to focus, in his work with Paul’s scriptural citations he attempts to “hold them all together in creative tension.”^[13] Certainly such areas are relevant for Luke’s use of Isaiah in our focal text, and the strategy of studying them in concert with one another is an important step. But even these five factors do not offer definitive answers or cover the full complexity of the intertextual relationship. For example, it seems clear that Luke is quite purposeful in the inclusion of both the Isaiah quotation and the Elijah and Elisha examples in Jesus’ sermon at Nazareth. But it is impossible to declare with any certainty what exactly those intentions were.^[14] And even more significantly, authorial intentions do not completely control the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Hidden Transcripts, Models of Empire, and the Gospel of Luke
• The Context of Luke and His Reading Communities
• Mary, the Magnificat, and the Powers That Be
• The Nazareth Proclamation: Nuancing Resistance
• The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man: Reversal Now or Later
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index