Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §13.1
however, that it was evidently considered to be typical of the Jesus tradition and
therefore freely used in the retelling of that tradition. Such a feature could be attributed
to the dominant influence of a very early teacher. But its wide dispersal
through the tradition is better explained as a feature of Jesus' own teaching style,
which was remembered as such from the first and which became not so much a
fixed element in the tradition, but rather an established feature of the retelling of
that tradition, somewhat in the manner of the formulaic phrases used by the folkloric
singers of the great sagas. 12
More to the point is the implication that what Jesus said may not be heard
aright. The likelihood that Jesus' message would not be received or heeded is explicitly
acknowledged (Mark 6.11/Q 10.10). Matthew and Luke retell the story
of the rich young man as a case in point of someone who failed to hear/heed Jesus'
word (Matt. 19.22/Luke 18.23). And the Evangelists do not hesitate to include
other stories where Jesus' opponents are antagonized by what they hear
him saying. 13 Especially striking is the way Mark and Matthew in particular use
the parable of the sower as a kind of window into Jesus' parabolic teaching. 14
The significance is that all three Evangelists treat this as a parable of hearing, of
different kinds of hearing. 15 For them, indeed, the emphasis of the parable is
more on the different kinds of unfruitful hearing (Mark 4.4-7, 15-19 pars.), even
though the parable itself ends by giving reassurance that there will be (much)
fruitful hearing as well (Mark 4.8, 20 pars.). Evidently this was how the parable
itself was heard in the typical performances of the earliest churches' tradition, 16
12. See above, §8.3f.
13. Mark 11.18; Matt. 15.12; Luke 4.28; 16.14; John 6.60; 8.43.
14. Both set it at the head of their main parable collections (Mark 4; Matthew 13);
Luke's collection is more modest (Luke 8.4-18). Because Matthew and Luke have followed
Mark 4.2-20 so closely it is not possible to tell whether Q had any equivalent. Luke 8.16-18 has
also followed Mark 4.21-25, but the QIThomas parallels are scattered (see above, chapter 8
n. 295). It would be curious if Q did not know a collection of parables. Perhaps this is a case
where Q material is hidden from us because there is no q material!
15. Particularly Mark: he begins the parable with the call to 'Hear' (4.3); the verb 'hear'
(akouö) occurs no less than 8 times in 4.9-20; the formulaic 'He who has ears to hear, let him
hear' occurs twice in the sequence (4.9, 23), to be followed immediately by the caution, 'Take
heed what you hear' (4.24), and the parable sequence ends by noting that Jesus 'spoke the word
to them as they were able to hear' (4.33). That 'preaching is sowing' is what Liebenberg describes
as 'a conventional conceptual metaphor' which provides the key to understanding the
parable (Language 362, 370-76).
16. There should be little doubt that the explanation (Mark 4.13-20 pars.) has been
added to the parable in the course of its transmission: particularly notable is the frequent reference
to 'the word' in an absolute sense (7 times in Mark 4.14-20, its editorial character confirmed
by 4.33), a feature far more reminiscent of later usage, especially Luke's account of the
spread of 'the word' (Acts 4.4; 6.4; 8.4; 10.36; 11.19; 14.25; 15.7; 16.6; 17.11; 19.20; 20.7),
than of anything Jesus is recalled as saying elsewhere (see further Hultgren, Parables 189-90).
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