The Scandal of the Gospels

7/27/2019 The Scandal of the Gospels

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... I want to argue that thecomplex of traps-snares-stumbling blocks-offenses-scandals,whichabide in the Greek word skandalon, is an essential part of the

Jewishand Christian Bibles, and that it is essentially, dangerously, andfascinatingly embodied in Gospel narratives. A corollary to myargumentis that the skandalon is sufficiently offensive that readers andinstitutions naturally want to domesticate it to nullify itsdangerouspower. (p. 5-6)

The offense I want to consider here is a distinctively

biblical idea; it was developed in the Bible for the sake of its story,its theology, and its readers, none of which can be altogetherdisentangledfrom the others. Without it, we miss the biblical representationof the hero and his actions, and we miss the fundamental powerof much of the hero's dialogue, including the speech genre alwaysassociated with Jesus: parables. (p. 6)

...Jesus himselfrepeatedly takes the form of an offense, a stumbling block. Andhisoffensiveness is reciprocated: in the end, those who are offendedcrucify him. After the death, the cross itself becomes the scandal:Paul refers to "the offense of the cross," an offense that he doesnotwant to be "removed" (Gal. 5:11). But whether it comes from

Jesusor the cross or elsewhere, the challenge to the individual's mostfundamental and cherished beliefs is at the heart of the New

Testamentskandalon.1 (p. 7)

A scandal may titillate or outrage us; either way, the titillation ormoral indignation effectively prevents any challenge of the sort thatoffense brings to the assumptions and truths we hold most dear andthe idols we cherish most deeply. Offense violates our assumptions


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about what our world is or what we think it ought to be. Whateveris unofficial, unestablished, non-normal, deviant, or nonstandard, inour view, carries with it the possibility of offense. (p. 7)

Whenever skandalonappears in the Greek text, it is translated in the RSV as "cause forstumbling," "cause of sin," "difficulty," "hindrance," "hindrance inthe way," "make fall," "pitfall," "stumbling block," "temptation," or"temptation to sin." With these varied translations, is it any wonderthat we fail to recognize a common idea repeatedly surfacing in theNew Testament? The verb skandalizo has fewer, but still varied,translations in the RSV: "cause of falling," "cause to fall," "cause tosin," "fall away," "give offense," "make fall," "offend," and "take offense."There is no form of "stumble" or of "scandal" here, but, infewer than one-quarter of the appearances, there is some form of"offense." (p. 8)

Rene Girard uses the idea in conjunctionwith his theory of "mimetic desire"essentially the idea that wehumans desire not some object as such but whatever is alreadydesired by a rival or model. We desire only what is given value byanother. Girard has applied his theory not only to literature (especiallyDostoyevski, Stendhal, Proust, and Shakespeare) but also toIntroduction: The Offense and Us 9anthropology, psychology, and theologychallenging the anthropologistswith a new theory of the origin of violence (in Violenceand the Sacred), psychologists with non-Freudian notions of desire

(in Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World), and biblicalscholars with desacralizing interpretations (in The ScapegoatandJob: The Victim of His People).The idea of the skandalon is crucialto Girard's larger argument about violence. The skandalon is theobstacle that one is obsessed by, or, as he says, the "obstacle-modelof mimetic rivalry" (Things Hidden, 416), which in fact is not usuallyreal at all but a metaphysical illusion created by the mechanismof desire, imitation, and rivalry. In the Hebrew Bible, the quintessentialscandal is idolatry (421); in the New Testament, it is the"other as an object of metaphysical fascination" (425). In both cases,and throughout history, the underlying principle of this obsessionis violence, the principle of dominating and being dominated. This

mechanism of violence, in Girard's view, is exposed by the NewTestament, which teaches that rivalry and violence can be suppressedonly through childlike imitation (as opposed to mimeticrivalry) in the biblical logic of love. (p. 8-9)

Whatever the origin of their interest in scandal, it is certain thatKierkegaard is the preeminent modem philosopher of the skandalonor (in the Princeton translations of Kierkegaard's works) the "offense."In The Sickness unto Death (1849), Anti-Climacus calls the


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offense "Christianity's crucial criterion" and "an eternal, essentialcomponent of Christianity." In both his signed and his pseudonymouswritings, Kierkegaard emphasizes its importance in order toshow the folly of Christians' ignoring "Christ's own instructions,10 The Offense

which frequently and so concernedly caution against offense; that

is, he [Christ] personally points out that the possibility of offense isthere and must be there" (83-84). (p. 9-10)

There is clearly a relation between the Derridean scandal andthe biblical skandalon: both violate norms, and both are stumblingblocks. But Derrida's scandal is finally nonexistent; once the erroneousdistinctions are abolished, the scandal "can no longer be said tobe a scandalous fact." (And, likewise, though for entirely differentreasons, the skandalon for Girard is ultimately an "illusion.") Scandalis, in Derrida's view, a useful deconstructive tool that deconstructsthe accepted truths of old concepts and then deconstructsitself. The biblical skandalon, on the other hand, is not a tool butan action. It does not deconstruct old concepts; it hardens them. Or,alternatively, it reveals truth, although not truth as a philosophicalconcept or doctrine. In its biblical form, the skandalon is encounteredby individuals on the way to idolatry or to truth. (p. 11)

Mindful both of Bloom's and Kierkegaard's scandal of normativemisreading and their lament over the suppressed offense, I am attemptinghere to reintroduce Bible readers to the biblical skandalon,to illuminate the workings of Gospel narratives as actions groundedin offense, and, more specifically, to explore parables as actionspresented by their offensive interlocutor, Jesus. My interest is not

simply in how the offense operates in the narrative but also in howwe as readers and interpreters conveniently eliminate its dangerousand fascinating qualities. Avoiding offense is a deep need, even (perhapsespecially) when it appears in sacred texts. (p. 13)

... There is nomistaking the astonishing insultyou are a Canaanite dogand itis clear that the woman does not mistake it: "Yes, Lord, yet eventhe dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table" (15:27).

More astonishing than the insult is the woman's response; she,unlike the Pharisees, affirms the insult ("Yes, Lord"), choosing notto be offended. She has acknowledged his lordship and his Jewishnessfrom the outset ("Lord, Son of David"). Even in the face of aninsult that would normally send one away from the giver of theinsult, enraged or in despair, she continues to acknowledge his lordshipand therefore is willing to accept the role of dog. She, like thedogs, will willingly take the crumbs, for these crumbs, she believes,are life-giving bread from the Lord, and they will heal her daughter.

Jesus's response"Woman, great is your faith!"is in direct contrastto his response to Peter in the preceding chapter, when Peter began


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to sink in the water ("You of little faith, why did you doubt?" Matt.14:31) and to all the disciples in the following chapter when theyforget Jesus's use of bread and teaching about bread ("You of littlefaith. . . . Do you still not perceive?" Matt. 16:8-9).

The Pharisees are offended; the Canaanite woman is not offended.The stark contrast is revelatory, for the opposite of offense is

faith, but the only way to faith is through the possibility of offense. (18-19)

In spite of this explicit statement about the blessedness of nottaking offense, and in spite of repeated offenses and potential offensesissuing from the mouth of Jesus, many readers of the Gospelsdo not want to recognize the possibility of offense that Jesus embodies.Indeed, this passage, which appears also in Mark with somevariations, is itself so offensive that some commentators have decidedthat it is a textual corruption because it is offensive. (p. 19)

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The Scandal of the Gospels