Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

But that by no means explains everything. Jesus himself must have had an extraordinary command of language; it comes through everywhere. It was so powerful that it also shaped the language of his disciples and those who handed on his tradition. Masters of language like G. K. Chesterton and Dorothy L. Sayers point explicitly to this unique quality of Jesus.

A Precise Observer

The degree to which the language of the historical Jesus continues to permeate the tradition is shown by a phenomenon that runs throughout the whole gospel tradition: Jesus’ words and parables betray a deep love for reality. They reveal a careful observation of things and people. And beyond all that they are richly imaginative and inventive. How unforgettable are the words, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the reign of God” (Matt 19:24). Anyone who has heard this saying about the proverbially largest animal and the proverbially smallest hole will never forget it—not only because it is so terribly vivid, but also because of its illusionless severity. Obviously it does not mean to say that in principle there is no salvation for rich people—one hundred percent of them. This kind of language is not interested in statistical accuracy. Its intention is to disturb, to shake us awake, to make us uneasy, to break through the icy armor of human indifference. We can see how uncomfortable it is from the fact that medieval theologians asserted that there was a narrow gate in Jerusalem that was called “the needle’s eye.” That drew all the sting from Jesus’ words. But that gate was an invention. It never existed. It was the offspring of the imagination of an Irish monk in the eighth century.²

Jesus wants to disturb his listeners. Therefore he loves paradox and has no hesitation in saying, “how can you say to your [sister or brother in faith], ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye” (Matt 7:4-5).

Another example of the vividness, brevity, and keenness of Jesus’ language: in 1945 the complete “Gospel of Thomas” was discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. Its existence was already known from individual quotations in the church fathers. It was probably written around the middle of the second century. Because of its gnosticizing tendencies, it was rightly excluded by the church from the canon of Sacred Scripture from the start. It contains a saying about the Pharisees: “They are like a dog sleeping in the cattle manger: the dog neither eats nor [lets] the cattle eat” (GThom 102). A Greek proverb is at the root of this. It speaks of unbearable people who can neither enjoy anything themselves nor let anyone else have enjoyment. Jesus, who apparently was much more educated than many exegetes allow, adopted the proverb and put it in a new context, for there is parallel content in Matthew 23:13 // Luke 11:52. Jesus was using similar familiar words when he said, “let the dead bury their own dead” (Matt 8:22) or “doctor, cure yourself!” (Luke 4:23).

So Jesus quotes. But how pointedly and disturbingly he quotes! If the subject were not so serious one could almost hear in the image of the dog in the manger a trace of Jesus’ humor: we only have to imagine how the cattle try to feed and cannot because the dog will not leave his comfortable spot in the manger. That, says Jesus, is just how the people’s theological teachers lie on the sources of knowledge. But they themselves do not live out of those sources and they prevent others from reaching that knowledge. Jesus apparently was a close observer.

And so it is with all his images and parables. It is astonishing how much “world” we find in Jesus’ parables and similitudes. Here is the world of rulers and politicians, businesspeople and great landowners, just as we also find the world of housewives and poor day laborers, fisherfolk and farmers. One must simply read the text against the grain. It is necessary to probe the sentences to see what realities they contain in order to see, behind the text, the narrator Jesus, deeply participant and carefully observant.

Here we have a story about a rich man’s banquet (Luke 14:16-24), and there one about how a poor woman looks for a lost coin (Luke 15:8-10). Here we read how a great mustard bush grows out of a little mustard seed (Mark 4:30-32) and how a small amount of sourdough leavens a huge quantity of dough (Matt 13:33). Here is a description of how a victim of assault lies in his blood, and a priest and a Levite pass by and simply look away (Luke 10:30-35). Here a terrorist prepares for his attack (GThom 98), and there a manager who has been fired for good cause secures his living for coming years with a clever trick (Luke 16:1-7).

The Corrupt Manager