The Genius of Jesus: His Use of Literary Forms

Hello guys, Wave Nunley with Bible Unplugged. Welcome back to another episode. We have just completed an eight-part series on Jesus’ most famous and longest public address, known as The Sermon on the Mount.

And there are a lot of components in that sermon, in that communication, that led me to want to dive a little bit more deeply into this most incredible mind that the world has ever known, and to really take a look at some of the things that make Jesus’ teachings pop for the first-century audience. And what I’m hoping, after we’ve gone through and jumped through the hoops in this session, will make those communications really pop for us as well. So we’re moving into a four-part series called The Genius of Jesus, and today what I want to look at is Jesus’ use of literary forms.

Now I know that automatically, right out of the shoot, that sounds really 30 and takes you back to maybe a 10th or 11th-grade English class. But trust me, his use of literary forms and the way that we’re going to look at his sentences are not like the way that you used to be forced to do sentence diagramming and that kind of thing. The communication of Jesus is much more dynamic than that, and we’re going to see that as we process through the material.

Now, when we talk about Jesus’ use of literary forms or literary devices, there are tons of them. Here’s an abbreviated list: Often Jesus will speak in parables. We’re told by scholars that somewhere between 40 and 70 parables Jesus uttered during his earthly ministry that are recorded in the gospels—parables that you know of probably quite well, like the parable of the Good Samaritan, or the lost sheep, or the lost coin. Um, Jesus also uses direct address, and we just looked at this in an eight-part series on The Sermon on the Mount, where he is just firing off for three full chapters. He also uses prophetic prediction. In Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew, he predicts his own death three different times and uses a prophetic formula that sounds a lot like the prophets of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. He’ll also use a prophetic warning type of device; you’ll see this in Matthew 23, for example, where seven different times he says, “Woe to you people who are being like this or doing this”—the woe formula. He’ll also use wordplay, so he’ll say, “Don’t cast your pearls before swine.” The word “swine” in Hebrew is *khazirim*; at least they turn *josreem* and trample you—*hazirim josreem*. So Jesus is not above using wordplay, and that connects with his audience. He’ll also use idiomatic expressions and figures of speech, like laying up your treasures on Earth and laying up your treasures in Heaven, which is used in literature between Malachi and Matthew, between the Testaments. He’ll also use hyperbole: “Woe to you who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.” Hyperbole—it’s an exaggeration for the purpose of making a point. He’ll also use things like sarcasm and humor. He, uh, for example, in the Gospel of Matthew says, “Woe to you who say that whoever swears by the temple, his oath isn’t binding, but if he swears by the gold on the temple, then his oath is binding.” He’s making a funny there because Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, tells us that Herod sort of installed golden spikes along the top of the holy of holies because pigeons kept being there and roosting and then defiling the court of sacrifice with their droppings. So he’s using a popular problem and solution, then a reference to the gold on the temple as making a funny and sort of using it in sarcasm against those that were um, in opposition or opposed to simple oath-taking and the gold versus the temple.

What I want to talk to you about though today, what I want us to look at in detail, is Jesus’ use of a literary formula or a literary device called poetic parallelism, sometimes more largely talked about as Hebrew poetic parallelism or Hebraic poetic parallelism. And I’d like to start by zooming in on one of Jesus’ stops as he moved from Nazareth to Capernaum. The name of the place is Magdala, or Magdala—likely the home of Mary Magdalene that we find in the gospels. So if you’re looking at the picture, uh, you have some beautiful farmland in the foreground, and then there is a cut between two mountains, Mount Nitai and Mount Arbel, that leads you down onto a very fertile plain. Then you see the Sea of Galilee and all the way to the Eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, the beginning of the Golan Heights. Well, back on this fertile plain that is directly adjacent to the Northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, that plain is called the plain of Gennesaret, and that’s exactly where we find the city of Magdala tucked in behind Mount Arbel and right on the very seashore of the Sea of Galilee. So, and 2009, there were a group of Mexican Catholics who were leveling off the area and bulldozing trees and the like in order to prepare the ground to build a retreat center. Instead, what they found was an ancient city. That ancient city had not been inhabited since the 1st century A.D. It was destroyed by the Romans in the spring of 68 or late 67. And this is the home of Mary Magdalene. In so doing, they also uncovered a beautiful first-century synagogue—literally a time capsule from the first century where people gathered together every Shabbat and often throughout the week to worship and to study—a synagogue from the first century, likely a synagogue that Jesus visited at one point sometime earlier. We did an entire session on the city of Magdala and focused on the synagogue, but what I wanted to focus on today is simply the internal components of the synagogue. Around the edges, the outer wall, you see benches where people would sit. This was standard architecture and standard seating for first-century synagogues. However, this synagogue had another feature that lots of other synagogues that have been discovered from later time periods did not include: It includes a set of seats internal inside of the other seats that run around the outer wall. This then was—these seats were most closely connected to the top of a pulpit that was used for the reading of the Torah. And so these people got to be right up close to the action—what we would call the box seats of today, the seats that were really reserved for the fat cats. Here’s a close-up of the same. We’re now inside the synagogue. You can see the mosaic floor. You can see the beautiful columns that have still some of the first-century plaster and painting on that plaster called fresco that was put in place in the first century A.D. So now we’re on the inside of the synagogue. You can see the bench seats around the edge, and then you can see the box seats closest connected to the top of this pulpit where the Torah was expounded, was read and expounded in the first century A.D., likely one that Jesus even used. Here’s another perspective on that, and you can see very clearly the interceding as opposed to the outer seating. Jesus uses this as an example in his teaching. He said, “They love the place of honor at the banquets,” and then he says, more or less makes the same point using different words as he passes by a second time, and “the chief seats, just like place of honor; they love the place of honor and the chief seats in the synagogue.” So what I’ve done in formatting this in poetic parallelism is to underline these common parts and then yellow these common parts. So “the place of honor and the chief seats” is making the same point; “the banquets and the synagogues” is making the same point. These are people who love the limelight when they’re out in public—get that. So Jesus has basically made the same point two different ways. This is a great example of Hebrew poetic parallelism.

Now, where would Jesus have gotten such an idea? Did he create this literary device or this literary form or formula? The answer is no. Evidently, Jesus got this because he was so exposed, so often exposed, so deeply exposed to the literature in his own Bible, and we’re talking there about the Hebrew Bible or what we in the West usually call the Old Testament. So let’s take a look at a couple of examples of this in the Hebrew Bible just to make sure that we’re on solid ground when we make that point that Jesus was majorly influenced by the literary, the most outstanding literary form in his Bible. So we get in Isaiah chapter one: “Alas, O nation sinful, sinful nation, people weighted down with iniquity, offspring of evil doers, sons who act corruptly.” So I’ve underlined the points in common—different ways of saying the same thing: “nation, people, offspring, sons”—they’re all basically synonymous. This is synonymous poetic parallelism. And then these people are sinful, full of iniquity; they’re evil doers, and they act corruptly. All of this in yellow is making the same point. So in four different ways, the prophet Isaiah has basically stated the same thing. Now look at the second part of the verse: “They have abandoned Yahweh, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away from him.” So in the green here, all of these are synonymous: “abandoned, despised, and turned their backs on or turned away from,” and then the blue—all the same thing: “Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, and him,” a pronoun referring to God himself. Look, these are all poetically parallel, and they’re all synonymous. So this is a beautiful example from one of the most famous poets in the Hebrew Bible, heavily influenced Jesus and his teaching, and we’ve got this right at the beginning of the book of Isaiah.

Now let’s look another at another book in the Hebrew Bible that also Jesus quotes from; it’s quoted lots of times in the New Testament. This is a front-and-center book from the new—from the Hebrew Bible, The Book of Psalms. And here we get this beautiful picture of the person who has found himself in deep trouble, surrounded by enemies, being put to death. “I can—I stare at my bones; my—my—um—my mouth is dried up.” And here in the Book of Psalms it says, “And yet I’ve come to realize,” the psalmist says, “that God has not despised nor has he abhorred the affliction of the afflicted.” These verbs are poetically parallel: “to despise and to abhor”; they both mean to hate. “Nor has he hidden his face from.” So what this means, if it’s all in poetic parallel, poetically parallel position: “to despise, to abhor, or to turn your back from or hide your face from him.” Now I just want to point out, yes, this is all poetically parallel, but it’s really interesting that Jesus quotes the same Psalm from the cross. When he begins the psalm, he just starts it out and expects everybody else to run to this point, at least toward the end of the psalm, when he says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” You keep following that thought, and you realize the same thing that the psalmist realized, that David realized, that even though it looked like and he felt like and he thought that God had abandoned him, in reality God had never turned his back on him. That’s also true of Jesus on the cross, and thank God for it, because had God turned his back on that final sacrifice, we would all still be dead and in our sins. I wrote an article on that: “Did God abandon Jesus on the cross?” Feel free to Google that, read it in full, take a look at it, follow the argumentation and see if you agree, because many people in many pulpits and many lecterns today, teachers and pastors, writers as well, have taken this position that God turned his back on Jesus, could not look at the final sacrifice that Jesus offered on the cross. Then we have at the end of this passage in Psalm 22: “All the ends of the Earth and all of the families of the Nations,” poetically parallel, absolutely, “will remember and turn to the Lord. We’ll worship before you,” poetically parallel, yes. And then finally, in verse 28: “For the kingdom is Yahweh’s, and he rules over the Nations.” It’s basically making the same point using a different set of words each time. So whether it’s Isaiah, the Psalms, The Book of Job, The Book of Micah, it doesn’t make any difference; you pick one in the Hebrew Bible, most often you’re going to find Hebrew poetic parallelism. So this definitely does impact the teachings of Jesus, his mentality, his thought world, and how he communicates to people in the first century A.D.

So I’ll tell you what, let’s take a look at some of Jesus’ other poetic parallels. In fact, let’s look at enough of them to recognize, yes, this is a major feature of Jesus’ teaching, and if I simply learn to track with him, then I’m going to get more out of my Bible study. I’m going to get more out of my devotional reading. I’ll get more out of my, you know, serious study with other people, home groups or small fellowship groups, um, and I will be able to bring more to the table, understanding Jesus from his original point of view, his original perspective. Matthew chapter 8: We’re going to start simple, and then we’ll get more complex, more difficult as we go through some examples from Jesus’ teaching. In Matthew chapter 8: “The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests.” Well, I’ve underlined the poetically parallel point: “foxes and birds,” and then I’ve yellowed “holes and nests.” This is just the way that Jesus decides to compare the animal kingdom with, but “the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” That beautiful teaching about the nature of the poverty of Jesus, the fact that he’s humbled himself to that point, using the animal kingdom, integrating that and then speaking in Hebrew poetic parallelism. This is just a beautiful example, a very simple example of that. Here’s another simple example, and by the way, this is from The Sermon on the Mount: “Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles.” Or, um, so you have “grapes and figs” poetically parallel; you have “the from and the from.” Interestingly, the word, the phrase, “not gathered from,” are not gathered from, is used elliptically here, just like we saw ellipsis in Isaiah and in Psalms. The verb is borrowed from one line and assumed in the next line. That’s another great literary device, a literary form that is beautiful that Jesus has learned from his national literature and is incorporating in his own teaching. And then the “from” is obviously, you know, parallel, and then “thorns the bushes” is added by the editor. This is a plural: “thorns and thistles”—beautiful poetic parallel in the original language of Jesus. Here’s another example: “Do not give,” and then, “do not throw what is holy and your pearls, that which is precious. Don’t give what is holy to dogs,” poetically parallel with “swine.” Big picture: “Do not give what is holy to dogs; do not throw your pearls before swine.” A beautiful, in practice, in every component part of these two statements, beautiful Hebrew poetic parallelism—so a great example for us to study when we’re trying to get on board with one of the primary literary features that Jesus uses whenever he is teaching publicly and verbally. Matthew chapter 5, verse 42: “Give to him who asks of you; do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.” Hopefully, at this point you’ve gotten used to the underlining and the capital letters and the different use of different colors, and you can see that “give and don’t turn away from,” “to him and from him,” “asks and wants to borrow,” “of you from you”—everything is a beautiful poetic parallelism. So he’s simply, again, making the same point two different ways. So if you didn’t miss it and you doze off or don’t understand the words of the first line, you get the same point in the second line. If something is unclear in the first line, like the use of a word or some idiomatic expression, some figure of speech, then you’re going to pick up in its parallel the same point that Jesus is making. Here’s another beautiful and very simple one: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent.” “Kills and stones,” poetically parallel, the prophets and those that God sends to as his spokespersons to the city of Jerusalem. Another beautiful poetic parallelism. By the way, yes, we’ve got Jerusalem in the background, in the Mount of Olives in the foreground, in the eye candy at the bottom of the page.

So here’s another example, and now what we’re going to do is go from simple to a little bit more complex. Notice they’re getting longer. Your eye candy here in the upper right is a picture from the model of Jerusalem that we use extensively when we are studying together in the land. We’ll spend an hour to working with this almost one-acre model of the city of Jerusalem as it existed largely in Jesus’ day and right before it was destroyed in A.D. 70. So Jesus says here in Matthew 7: “Enter by the narrow gate,” and now the parallelisms start. This is just sort of an introductory statement. He says, “The gate is wide,” that’s to be compared to “the gate is small,” down, see the B and then the B1. “The gate is wide and the gate is small. Well, the gate is wide for what,” and “the way is broad.” Oh, there’s a parallel with a comparison with “the way is narrow.” “Broad, narrow, wide, small.” “For the gate is wide, the way is broad that leads to destruction.” “Leads to destruction” is in parallel position with—it’s—it’s kind of a parallel that’s the exact opposite, and so “that leads to destruction” is parallel with “that leads to life.” One gate leads to destruction; the other gate leads to life. And then in the very middle, and this often in, at least in the Hebrew Bible, when you get to that middle point, that is the point that is being emphasized, uh, it’s often called chiastic structure, but he says, “And many are those who enter by it.” This is the warning that Jesus is giving: There are a lot of people who are going to go the way of destruction; they will not find abundant life here or eternal life there. Jesus is uttering this then as a warning; it’s the sort of the hinge point, the key point of the entire parallelism. “Many are those who enter by it,” and then that’s compared to “few there are who find it,” find what, the narrow gate, the way that leads to life. So let’s look at the poetic parallelisms here: “The gate is wide as opposed to the gate is small; the way is broad as opposed to the way is narrow; that leads to life.”

Is poetically, in comparison to that, leads to light; that to destruction; that and life leads to destruction, and leads to life. And many there are who go by it that doesn't even have a parallel, um, except when you get to the very bottom. Few there are that find it. Uh, this, by the way, is a teaching of Jesus, a precious teaching of Jesus included in the gospels, included in the New Testament, in our Bible, inspired by the Holy Spirit. That is going in the exact opposite direction of most prophecy teachers and many other popular teachers who say that the end of time is going to be marked by a great sweeping end-time Revival. Much of Jesus' saying is going to move in the exact opposite direction. We've got to follow him rather than following the majority of voices, even within the Christian Community. We have then many there are who enter by it, and the gate is small that leads, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few there are who find it.

Let's go to the next text. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on Earth where moth and rust can destroy, and where thieves can break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven where neither moth nor rust can destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. Another lengthy poetic parallelism, but let's dig into it. Lay up for yourselves treasures in A, and then in A1, but lay up for yourselves treasures. Well, what—what's the difference? Don't lay up treasures on Earth, but lay up treasures in Heaven. Those are supposed to be pancaked together. Jesus' original audience, Jesus himself would have intended Us and Them, the original audience, to make this connection. Well, why not store up treasure? Lay up treasure, by the way, that's a really interesting turn of phrase, or idiom, or figure of speech. Why not lay up treasure on Earth? Because moth and rust can destroy, and thieves can break in and steal. Moth and rust, break in and steal—two different component parts; those go together; they also go with where. If you lay up for your treasure in heaven, the opposite of laying up treasure on Earth, then Jesus says moth and rust cannot destroy; thieves—notice the thieves and the thieves—thieves cannot break in, break in, or steal, steal. So this is another beautiful way of saying the same thing, kind of two different sides of the same coin, saying the same thing two different ways and grinding his point in, bringing that point to bear so that this is a memorable moment in the lives of people who hear him; hopefully a memorable moment in the lives of those like us, 21 centuries later, who are reading him now.

Jesus will say this: Come unto me, all ye who are weary, and notice right below that I've got the weary underline and heavy laden—two ways of saying the same thing. So we've got to con—assume that this is poetic parallelism. He says, "I will give you rest," notice the B, and then the B1, and you will find rest for your souls. He's making the same point. So in between that, he says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." Take my yoke means to learn from Jesus. We have to assume that Jesus has constructed it in this way; that what is it? He's defining his terms; what does it mean to take the Yoke of Jesus? It means to learn from him. That's exactly what we're engaged in right now, by the way. And when you're doing your own Bible study, and when you're listening to a sermon or reading some devotional literature, whatever, we are learning from him. Take my yoke, not the Yoke of someone else; take my yoke. Jesus says, "Learn from me." So the emphasis is on us submitting to his Mastery, to his Lordship. If we do that, even though we may have been previously weary or heavy laden, he promises his rest. And then he says, "If you'll take my yoke, if you'll learn from me, you will find rest for your souls." By the way, this "for your souls" should be read in up here elliptically, and Jesus is talking about giving us rest, not from our weekly work, not from our 40-hour job, not from having to cut the grass or paint our house when it needs to be. He's not going to make—turn us into slobs; he is going to give our souls rest. And that one little addition down here in B1 helps define what Jesus meant back up in his original point about giving us rest. Now, how is he going to do this? How does—what is his yoke like? He says, "My yoke is easy; my burden is light." Another beautiful parallelism just within itself, just within this last—these last two lines. My yoke is easy; my burden is light. And you can see with the green and then the underline that these are beautifully poetically parallel.

So as we've studied a bunch of different examples from the lips of Jesus in The Gospel of Matthew and Luke, how does this help us to better understand Jesus? Because you know we talk about all the time, "I just want to know Jesus better." Okay, well, here's a great way of getting to know Jesus better. If we leave it in that amorphous way, it doesn't really challenge us. "I just want to know him." The Gnostics did that in the second, third, fourth, fifth centuries A.D. They just wanted a deeper spirituality, but what they ended up discovering was a Jesus who never existed. They wrote their own gospels; they broke off from the apostolically led church, and they ended up in incredible error. Epiphanius, one of the early writers of the—of the church in the early 300s, he said the Gnostics have gone looking for a Jesus who never existed, and in so doing they lost the only Jesus who really did exist. Well, we don't want to do that. We don't want to just do the bumper sticker theology, "I just want to get to know Jesus better." Let's really get to know him better. How does he communicate? And when we do, we get to know him better. So this is one way. How do we get to knowing better and appreciate his genius even more deeply? Revere him, venerate him, respect him, acknowledge his greatness. One of the ways is to see how he operates when he is communicating, and he's hitting on all six cylinders. So how do we know? How do we get that? What do we get from this study that we just engaged in? Well, we know that Jesus is intimately—feel familiar with his Bible, the Hebrew Bible, what we call in the West the Old Testament. We know it because he not only knows the language of the Old Testament, he not only knows the Old Testament word for word and can quote it at will anytime he wants, but he also knows the literary forms of the Old Testament and begins using them, incorporating them in his own teaching. But guess what? He not only does he understand the literary forms, he also is able—he is—he is so well versed in this that he can create his own poetic parallelisms. When he gives us poetic parallels in the gospels of Matthew or Mark or Luke, or sometimes even John, he's not quoting the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible word for word. These are things he's coming up with on his own—originality. So he has original creativity; he's not just a—a gutter sparrow; he's not just a plagiarist; he's coming up with this stuff. And get this, guys, he's not using notes; he's not using a teleprompter; he's not borrowing this from some pre-written script; he is coming up with this stuff on the spot, in real time, live and in front of oftentimes thousands of people, and off the cuff he's able to come up with these amazingly complex poetic parallelisms. Here's a—by the way, guys, for those of you who have studied under more liberal professors and more liberal institutions, that kind of stuff that we see Jesus doing does not happen in Greek literature. We say the gospels are Greek; yeah, they're translation Greek, but in the world of Greek literature, the—the—the—the great—um—uh, philosophers and the Great Debaters return or that writers of rhetoric, they don't use those—those kinds of literary forms. This is inherent within Jewish and Hebraic—Hebrew-based literature only. That's the reason why we see this. So forget about the gospels being written way late and, you know, outside the land of Israel and by non-Jewish people and stuff like that. Instead, let's start looking East instead of West, because that's where poetic parallels—parallelism occurs and on a regular basis. So when Jesus is coming up with this, this is real-life, true Jesus, not something the later Church made up.

Um, another thing is that we realize when we see Jesus communicating and we get down into the weeds, the details of how he's communicating, he really knows his world. Because not only is he exposed to the Hebrew Bible, so also is his audience. If his audience knows Hebrew poetic parallelism because they've heard it so often, he's going to use that to communicate with them. It's going to hit them right in the forehead; they're going to get it; they're going to understand it. And so Jesus is able then, like he uses parables, to use a pre-existing literary form to communicate with power and clarity to his audience, to his contemporaries. Another thing is that this stuff is very engaging. You saw how detailed it was; you saw how intricate the—the—the literary form can be as we moved from the comp—from the simple to the more complex. And so this keeps his audience engaged instead of them being able to check out and daydream or whatever. They have to track with him to get him; they've got to—they've got to move where he moves; they've got to follow his examples, his illustrations; they've got to follow his literary devices. And as they do, they are engaged in—they are a part of this communication, and it impacts them more powerfully. Can I suggest this? It will do the same to us. And then finally, when we have a passage that—that gives one line that is not all that clear—not a hundred percent sure—how will he give us rest? Does that mean we just sit around and eat potato chips and—and drink soda pop and watch TV all the time? No. "I—you will find rest for your souls." One line explains or clarifies the other line, and so it helps—this literary device of poetic parallelism helps Jesus to communicate more clearly and more powerfully again to his audience. It will do the same for us; it will function the same way for us.

So as we have taken this first shot at looking at the genius of Jesus, and we've looked at the way that Jesus constructs his material so intricately, so beautifully, sometimes so complex, we have seen the beauty of Jesus in action. We have uncovered, we have discovered, we've connected with one of the incredible aspects of the genius of Jesus, and he was an effective communicator to his generation. My hope is that as you read your Bible, he will be just as effective in communicating, and more, and just as powerful in communicating to you as well. So as you take this, maybe to some of you, new tool in your toolbox of understanding the Bible, to the reading of the gospels, you look for these—they're everywhere—that is a dominant feature in the teaching of Jesus, and enjoy it. Enjoy the journey; enjoy the process of discovery; enjoy getting to know Jesus better. And then that Jesus that you learn about, feel free to share that with folks around you in the coming days and weeks. God bless you richly until we see you again next time on Bible Unplugged. I pray the—the best, the greatest blessing of God on you as—as you serve him. And by the way, a quick commercial: if these kinds of studies are helping you, it's likely they'll help family members and friends and co-workers, teammates and what have you. So please feel free to share what you're learning, uh, where you're learning it from, and get people connected with Bible Unplugged. Until next time, God bless.