The Scandal of the Gospels: Jesus, Story, and Offense

Contents......Page 12
Part I: The Offense......Page 14
1. Introduction: The Offense and Us......Page 16
Encountering and Suppressing Offense......Page 17
Some Contemporary Varieties of Offense......Page 21
The Pharisees and the Canaanite Woman......Page 27
Yahweh\'s Snares and Stumbling Blocks......Page 35
Jesus as the Stumbling Stone......Page 41
3. The Offensiveness of Offense......Page 45
Beguiling the Reader......Page 54
Stages on Life\'s Way......Page 59
Climacus on the Non-understandable......Page 65
Anti-Climacus\'s Dialectics......Page 73
Offending the Establishment......Page 76
Part II: Offense in Gospel Narratives......Page 82
Parables as Obstructions and Revelations......Page 84
Parables as Lies......Page 86
Parables as Transforming Acts of Truth......Page 89
Collision and Crisis......Page 92
Toward Reading Parables as Scandals (A Critical Addendum)......Page 96
Substance versus Response......Page 103
Interpreting the Householder......Page 110
Interpreting Desire......Page 115
Writers, Readers, and Contexts......Page 120
Offenses from Within and Without......Page 126
How Does It Seem to You?......Page 131
The Sublime and the Bathetic......Page 134
The Unforgiving Slave......Page 136
Utterance and Response......Page 141
David and Nathan: Between I and Thou......Page 144
The Dialogic Samaritan......Page 147
The Official World and the Unseemly......Page 150
Between Stories......Page 155
Mythic Plots and Scandalous Stories......Page 158
The Beloved Disciple and the End of Interpretation......Page 161
The Narrative Progress of Offense......Page 166
The Divine Skandalon Enacted: God as Flesh......Page 172
Provocations and Passion......Page 177
Occasions for Offense......Page 180
Notes......Page 184
Works Cited......Page 196
Appendix: Selected Greek Words Relevant to Offense and Their Appearances in the New Testament......Page 206
B......Page 212
I......Page 214
M......Page 215
S......Page 216
W......Page 217