Abstract
The last one hundred years has been a time in which scientific research has yielded unprecedented life-saving contributions, but at the same time, probably more violent actions have been perpetrated by human beings on one another than ever before.1 All too frequently these conflicts have arisen among and between communities known as the “children of Abraham,” who have a common monotheistic religious history. Furthermore, each of the three faith traditions are being challenged by those passages in their holy scriptures that can be interpreted selectively to justify actions of aggression and rejection; at the same time, each has scriptural justification for initiatives that can lead to reconciliation and understanding of difference. One example of a variously interpreted scriptural passage in the Christian Bible is the Parable of the Pounds in the Gospel of Luke. This parable has been interpreted in many different ways over the past two millennia. Sometimes it has been cited to justify exploitation, polarization, and division, while at other times it has been seen as a prophetic stimulus for moral rectitude and passive resistance in the face of political and religious oppression.
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Notes
See Karen Armstrong, Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact on Today’s World (Macmillan, London, 1988), 1–4.
Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (London: HarperCollins, 2000), xi
Rick Strelen, Luke the Priest. The Authority and Author of the Third Gospel (Aldershot UK/Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2008), 1.
Craig A. Evans, Luke (Peabody MA: Hendrickson, 1990), 7.
See also Bruce W. Tuckman & Mary Ann C. Jensen, “Stages of Small Group Development Revisited,” Group and Organizational Studies 2 (1977): 419–427.
For a more extensive exegetical analysis, see Merrill Kitchen, “Rereading the Parable of the Pounds: A Social and Narrative Analysis of Luke 19:11–28,” in Prophecy and Passion. Essays in Honour of Athol Gill, ed. David Neville (Hindmarsh, SA: Australian Theological Forum, 2002), 225–246.
George M. Foster, “Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good,” American Anthropologist 67, no. 2 (1965): 304–305
Halvor Moxnes, The Economy of the Kingdom of God. Social Conflict and Economic Relations in Luke’s Gospel (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988), 75–98.
See Josephus, Life of Flavius Josephus, 68–76, in The Works of Josephus, trans. William Whiston (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987), 23–26; also Séan Freyne, Galilee: From Alexander the Great to Hadrian 323 BCE to 135 CE. A Study of Second Temple Judaism (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998), 165–170.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies. Book 1, VI.4; Book II, XXIV.3 in The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Volume 1. eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), 324, 411–412. Also Frédéric Manns, “La Parabole des Talents: Wirkungsgeschichte et racines Juives,” Revue des Sciences Religieuses 65 (1991): 346–358, extensively reviews the interpretations of the Parable of the Talents in the Patristic writings, commenting in passing on the Parable of the Pounds. See also Eusebius, De Theophania, cited in William D. Stroker, Extracanonical Sayings of Jesus (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989), 45.
See, for example, J. Norval Geldenhuys, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (London/Edinburgh: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1950) 473–478
I. Howard Marshall, Commentary on Luke. NIGCT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978), 700–709
Eduard Schweizer, The Good News according to Luke, trans. David E. Green (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press), 1984, 292–296
J. Massyngbaerd Ford, My Enemy is My Guest: Jesus and Violence in Luke (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1984), 108–109
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV (New York: Doubleday, 1985), 1227–1233
Michael Goulder, Luke. A New Paradigm. Vols. I and II, (Sheffield, UK: JSOT Press, 1989), 683
Craig A. Evans, Luke (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1990), 285
Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke. NICNT (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 1997), 673–680. But note that the dissonance was recognized over a century ago by the German theologian Adolf Jülicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1910), 472–495. Later commentators recognizing the dissonance include Joachim Jeremias, Rediscovering the Parables, trans. S. H. Hooke (London: SCM Press, 1966), 46–47
Luke Timothy Johnson, “The Lukan Kingship Parable (Luke 19.11–27),” Novum Testamentum 24, 2 (1982): 139
Ignaçe de la Potterie, “La Parabole du Prétendant a Royauté (Lc 19.11–28)”, A Cause de l’lÉvangile, lÉtudes sur les Synoptiques et les Actes (Paris: Cerf/Publications de Saint-Abdré, 1986), 641
James M. Dawsey, The Lukan Voice. Confusion and Irony in the Gospel of Luke (Macon, GA: Peeters Mercer, 1986), 96–97
J. D. M. Derrett, “A Horrid Passage in Luke Explained,” Expository Times 97 (1986): 136–138
Halvor Moxnes, The Economy of the Kingdom. Social Conflict and Economic Relations in Luke’s Gospel (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988), 73
Brendan Byrne The Hospitality of God. A Reading of Luke’s Gospel. (Strathfield, NSW: St. Paul’s, 2000), 152–153.
Catherine Keller, “The Love of Postcolonialism: Theology in the Interstices of Empire,” in Postcolonial Theologies: Divinity and Empire, ed. Catherine Keller, Michael Nausner, and Mayra Rivera (St. Louis, MS: Chalice, 2004), 223
see also Bernard Lewis, The Multiple Identities of the Middle-East (London: Phoenix, 1999), 26–28.
Keith Ward, “Convergent Spirituality,” in Christianity in the 21st Century, ed. Deborah A. Brown (New York: Crossroad, 2000), 49.
For a discussion on the social values of honor and shame, see Bruce J. Malina and Jerome H. Neyrey, “Honor and Shame in Luke-Acts: Pivotal Values of the Mediterranean World,” in The Social World of Luke Acts. Models for Interpretation. ed. Jerome H. Neyrey (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), 25–65.
Walter Bruegemann, Testimony to Otherwise. The Witness to Elijah and Elisha (St. Louis MS: Chalice Press, 2007), 28.
Nelson Mandela, “No Easy Walk to Freedom” address, August 21, 1953”. In In the Words of Nelson Mandela, ed. Jennifer Crwys-Williams (Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing, 1998), 16.
Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. R. G. Smith. New York: Macmillan, 1987
Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference. How to Avoid the Clash of Civilisations (London/New York: Continuum, 2003), 151.
Terry Veling, “In the name of Who? Levinas and the Other side of Theology,” Pacifica 12 (1999): 292, citing Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 18, 26.
Ghazi Salahuddin Atabani, “Islamic Shari’ah and the Status of NonMuslims,” Religion, Law and Society. A Christian-Muslim Discussion, ed. Tarek Mitri (Geneva/Kampen: WCC Publications/Kok Pharos Publishing, 1995), 64.
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© 2011 Luca Anceschi, Joseph A. Camilleri, Ruwan Palapathwala, and Andrew Wicking
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Kitchen, M. (2011). Holding Hands and Bearing Arms: A Continuing Challenge for Global Religious Communities. In: Anceschi, L., Camilleri, J.A., Palapathwala, R., Wicking, A. (eds) Religion and Ethics in a Globalizing World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117686_6
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