In Luke and Acts, it is often difficult to determine to whom the term ‘Lord’ refers. For example, in Luke 1:76 Zechariah says of John, his newborn son, ‘And you, child, will be called a prophet of the most high since you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways’.Footnote 1 Who is the ‘Lord’ in this verse? It could be God, or it could be the Lord Jesus who has already been called ‘Lord’ by Elizabeth back in 1:43. It is difficult to tell. This does not stop interpreters from taking sides on the issue, when they even notice it, of course.Footnote 2 Yet it is frequently assumed that with just the right amount of critical thinking, linguistic skill, or historical knowledge, we can know who the referent of ‘Lord’ really is. However, this may not actually be the case. As Kavin Rowe once wrote in this journal:
Luke 1:76 is fully ambiguous in itself as regards the identity of the κύριος. And this, it may be said, is precisely the point of the kyriotic overlap. The either YHWH or Jesus forced upon the text by many exegetes is a false dichotomy.… This either/or dichotomy is an historicist assumption carried over into exegesis that obscures the theological significance of the use of κύριος and prevents apprehension of the subject matter.Footnote 3
Rowe helpfully alerts us to how the training of biblical scholars can lead them to miss what is right in front of them. This training, of course, is not purposeless. After all, many texts in scripture are obscure to us that were perfectly clear to the original readers or hearers. Nevertheless, sometimes texts can be ambiguous on purpose. To resolve such ambiguities is therefore not to clarify a text but to obscure it. It is indeed not hard to find scholars arguing for intentional ambiguities in various places in scripture,Footnote 4 but few have attempted a more general account of the interpretation of ambiguity in biblical texts. For example, how can interpreters decide when ambiguity is being used purposefully, that is, as a literary strategy? Furthermore, what might it mean to interpret such ambiguities productively, not merely as linguistic curiosities but as strategies by which biblical texts communicate theology?
In this article, I therefore offer a hermeneutical account of ambiguity, using Luke and Acts as an extended case study. After discussing how we should identify purposeful ambiguity, I distinguish verbal ambiguity – which has received the lion’s share of scholarly attention – from ambiguity beyond the sentence level, such as ambiguities of plot or character. Furthermore, instead of approaching ambiguity primarily as a failure of language or a problem to be solved, I offer a framework for thinking about ambiguity as an invitation to read a text from multiple angles. I illustrate the discussion throughout with a series of examples taken from Luke and Acts, a corpus sometimes noted for its ambiguity.Footnote 5 Nevertheless, the analysis offered here should apply equally well to other biblical texts. I close with reflections on how this approach to ambiguity is helpful when reading scripture against different cultural contexts and in the study of New Testament Christology.
How do we identify purposeful ambiguity?
‘Ambiguity’ is unfortunately a rather ambiguous term itself. Literary theorists have defined ‘ambiguity’ in various ways. William Empson famously takes a particularly expansive approach to identifying ambiguity.Footnote 6 Others, like Shlomith Rimmon, identify ambiguity only as instances where two equally viable interpretations are ‘mutually exclusive’.Footnote 7 Accordingly, other related phenomena such as ‘the subjectivity of reading’, ‘ambivalence’, ‘vagueness’, ‘irony’ or ‘double meaning’ are distinguished from what she considers to be true ambiguity.Footnote 8 Others take a more mediating position.Footnote 9
For this study, let us say that ambiguity occurs when a reader cannot decide between more than one viable meaning of a text. Ambiguous language is therefore not merely language that is unclear but language that means too much. Scott Noegel puts the issue well: ‘Ambiguous signs, words, and lines do not leave a text impenetrable to understanding, and thus incapable of conveying meaning. Rather, they pack the text with interpretive options, contingencies, and points of view—they overload their contexts with meanings’.Footnote 10
There are many things that might cause a text to be unintentionally ambiguous.Footnote 11 Sometimes it is the author’s fault. The author does not realise that what was written can be interpreted differently than how it was intended. Sometimes it is the readers’ fault. They lack the necessary knowledge or perspective to be able to disambiguate a text. Of course, sometimes ambiguity is no one’s fault since authors can also use ambiguity intentionally, that is, with purpose. Authors can have numerous purposes for being ambiguous,Footnote 12 whether to make a joke, to draw a connection between two things, to avoid saying something too openly, to keep one’s rhetorical options open, to create a sense of mystery and so on.Footnote 13
Scholars overwhelmingly, however, focus on verbal ambiguity, that is, ambiguity at the sentence level. Paul Raabe, for example, distinguishes three kinds of ambiguity, all of which occur at the sentence level: (1) lexical ambiguity, when an individual word can mean more than one thing; (2) phonetic ambiguity, when a word sounds like another word and both make sense in context and (3) grammatical ambiguity, when the morphology or syntax of a construction can be plausibly read in more than one way.Footnote 14 Most other discussions of ambiguity in biblical texts have followed along similar lines.
Of course, interpreters are regularly tempted to collapse ambiguity into a single clear meaning. This is not necessarily illegitimate. Most of the time apparent ambiguity can be resolved. Readers do this automatically whenever they read, such as when readers determine in which sense a word is being used in context.Footnote 15 Ambiguities can indeed be resolved by appealing to other parts of the text,Footnote 16 the style of the author,Footnote 17 broader linguistic evidenceFootnote 18 or historical context.Footnote 19 All of this works because context (of whatever kind) helps close off some avenues of interpretation while leaving others open. For example, in Acts 3:16, Peter says that the formerly disabled man who stands in front of the Jewish council was healed by faith in Jesus’ name. It is not clear whose faith Peter refers to. It could be the formerly disabled man’s faith (cf. Luke 8:48), or it could be Peter and John’s faith (cf. Luke 5:20). However, before the man was healed, he exhibited no sign of faith other than asking for alms (Acts 3:3). Meanwhile, Acts makes it clear that when the apostles heal through Jesus’ name, this requires an active connection of faith with Jesus himself, as the examples of Simon the Magician (8:18–23) and the sons of Sceva indicate (19:11–20). This resolves the ambiguity and indicates that the faith referred to in 3:16 is the apostles’ faith rather than the man’s.Footnote 20
Thus, interpreters do well to try to resolve ambiguities when they arise. After all, it is a common exegetical mistake to assume that words bring all their potential meaning into every use, what is sometimes called ‘illegitimate totality transfer’.Footnote 21 Readers of biblical texts are sometimes especially tempted to make these texts seem more profound and nuanced with subtle shades of ambiguous meaning. Thus, alleged ambiguity is sometimes a result of overactive verbal imaginations.Footnote 22 A good example of this problem can be seen in the recent exchange between Jeremy Barrier and Stephen Carlson regarding Barrier’s proposal that κόσμος in Galatians 4:3 (τὰ στοιχϵῖα τοῦ κόσμου) means both ‘world’ and ‘foreskin’.Footnote 23 Carlson’s response demonstrates well how context closes off or activates meaning. Responsible interpreters do well to pay attention to how the context of a passage narrows possible meaning. Even so, interpreters should not prematurely foreclose the possibility of purposeful ambiguity in general since, as Carlson writes, ‘irreducible ambiguity occurs when contextual cues strongly activate more than one distinct sense’.Footnote 24
Thus, appeals to intentional ambiguity should only be made when (1) attempts to resolve alternative interpretations have been reasonably exhausted; and (2) multiple ambiguous meanings make good sense in the larger context.Footnote 25 Other signs may also help indicate that one is or is not dealing with intentional ambiguity.Footnote 26 Consider, by way of negative example, Luke 23:2, where the Jewish council accuses Jesus before Pilate, saying that he calls himself χριστὸν βασιλέα. Virtually all translations read this as two nouns in apposition: ‘Christ, a king’ (e.g., KJV, NIV, Luther). It is, of course, entirely possible that χριστός is an adjective, thus: ‘anointed king’.Footnote 27 It is difficult to come up with definitive reasons for why one reading should be preferred over the other. However, it is also hard to imagine why this ambiguity would be purposeful in the context of the Lukan narrative. The two potential readings are not sufficiently distinct for the ambiguity to have a clear literary effect. Thus, an irresolvable ambiguity is not necessarily a purposeful ambiguity.
Beyond verbal ambiguity
So far, we have focused on verbal ambiguity, that is, ambiguity at the sentence level. This includes ambiguities of word meaning, syntax, morphology and so on. Of course, sentences are not the only place where ambiguity can occur. While scholars tend to focus on the ambiguity of sentences, there is often even more ambiguity beyond the sentence level, what is sometimes called ‘narrative ambiguity’.Footnote 28 Biblical scholars have examined the ambiguity of characterisation,Footnote 29 plot,Footnote 30 the meaning of metaphorsFootnote 31 or even a writing’s overall theological outlook.Footnote 32 While Rimmon offers a helpful theoretical discussion of the distinction between verbal and narrative ambiguity,Footnote 33 here we simply need to note how and why narrative ambiguity occurs. Readers must routinely make determinations about things like characters’ motivations or the relationship between events in order to make sense of a story.Footnote 34 In literary theory, this is often referred to as ‘gaps’ in the text.Footnote 35 While filling in these gaps can often be straightforward, this is not always the case. Consider Luke 9:18–22 where Jesus asks his disciples who the crowds say that he is. They tell him that some say he is Elijah, some that he is John the Baptist and some that he is one of the ancient prophets. Jesus asks them what they think. Peter, always the first to answer, says that Jesus is ‘the Messiah of God’ (9:20). Jesus then warns them to tell no one about this and tells them that he will suffer, be rejected by the religious leaders in Jerusalem, be killed and be raised.
There are numerous gaps in this story. Some are easy to fill. For example, it is not said whether Jesus approves of Peter’s confession, but it is easy to conclude that he does since he tells the disciples not to tell anyone what Peter has said. The readers also know from earlier in the story that Jesus is indeed the Messiah (2:11; 2:26; 4:18). However, some gaps are not as easy to fill. For example, why does Jesus tell his disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah? This question is harder to answer since the narrative does not give the readers the resources to answer this question with confidence. Nevertheless, many are quick to assume that Jesus swears the disciples to secrecy to prevent some kind of violent messianic panic.Footnote 36 Others assert that Jesus’ rule as messiah is necessarily characterised by the inclusion of both Jews and Gentiles, which only becomes possible after Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus thus forbids his disciples from proclaiming him as Messiah until this is possible.Footnote 37
These are plausible options. However, one should note how these proposals fill in the gap by appealing to larger ideas about what kind of story Luke and Acts are telling in the first place. This should alert us to the danger of the illegitimate gap-filling that can result from overhasty reading and incorrect presuppositions. As Meir Sternberg warns, ‘Illegitimate gap-filling is one launched and sustained by the reader’s subjective concerns (or dictated by more general preconceptions) rather than by the text’s own norms and directives’.Footnote 38 Such gap-filling often functions as a sort of Rorschach test. Thus, if one believes that Luke’s purpose is to redefine Jewish messianism, then one will read accordingly. Likewise, if one believes that Luke’s purpose is to show how the covenant with Israel is redefined to include Gentiles, then one will interpret accordingly. This is why interpreters frequently do not make arguments for such gap-filling: it proceeds from what they take to be obvious. Now, this is not at all to say that all gap-filling is illegitimate. On the contrary, readers must fill in gaps as they read. To read is to fill in gaps. The point here is that not all gap-filling strategies are equal; sometimes readers do well to leave certain gaps unfilled or entertain the possibility that the text may allow for multiple ways of filling a gap. Further reading may illuminate the question, or it may not. Attentive readers must be patient.
Nevertheless, while interpreters are sometimes willing to leave verbal ambiguity unresolved, they are often particularly resistant when it comes to ambiguity beyond the sentence level. While it is easy to explain verbal ambiguity as an example of authorial cleverness, ambiguity beyond the sentence level is often perceived by many as authorial sloppiness. Sternberg’s comments on this point are particularly illuminating:
Multiple meanings at the verbal level are not always mutually exclusive. Even when such conflicts arise in a lyric poem, it is often possible to give them a realistic grounding in the lyric ‘I’ (e.g., ‘the phrase is ambiguous and thereby expresses the speaker’s “ambivalence” or “his sarcasm and his irony”’ etc.). It is quite another matter when it comes to the reconstruction of events in a story: here we cannot ‘really’ have two opposite things taking place at one and the same time. It is the impossibility of devising a realistic motivation for the multiple, alternative systems of plot that has apparently deterred critics and theorists from legitimating them.Footnote 39
Ambiguity beyond the sentence level threatens our ability to make sense of the plot, characters and so on. However, this destabilisation may be precisely the point. It may be a key part of the effect that a writing is supposed to have on its readers even if the ambiguity is resolved at a later point.
Unresolvable ambiguity as an opportunity for re-reading
What happens when ambiguity – of whatever kind – cannot be easily or honestly resolved and seems to be purposeful? How can interpreters approach such ambiguity? Sometimes the effect of ambiguity is to evoke a sense of wonder and mystery. Christopher Frilingos notes that sometimes texts are ‘characterized…by ambiguity and suspenseful gaps, reminding readers of what human beings do not know. In the face of acts of divine power and expressions of divine knowledge, mortal understanding reaches its limits’.Footnote 40 This is particularly likely to be the case when supernatural characters are speaking or when human beings are giving a divine message. After all, if God is beyond understanding (Isa. 55:8), then it stands to reason that sometimes God’s words may be hard to understand as well. The inscrutability of the writing on the wall in Daniel 5 is an excellent example of this phenomenon.
One can also see this in Luke 2:11 when an angel announces the birth of Jesus to a group of shepherds: ‘In the city of David a savior has been born to you today who is Messiah Lord’. It is unclear how the two nouns, χριστὸς κύριος (Messiah Lord), are supposed to relate to each other. This is apparent from the way that some ancient readers have changed the text to read χριστὸς κυρίου (‘the Lord’s Messiah’) instead (cf. Luke 2:26).Footnote 41 Some interpreters argue that κύριος simply explains χριστός for Hellenistic readers.Footnote 42 However, this is unlikely because κύριος is an odd explanation for χριστός and these titles are not treated as equivalent elsewhere in Luke and Acts (see Acts 2:36). The purpose is clearly to relate these titles to one another. However, it is not clear how.Footnote 43 Instead, it may be that the meaning of these terms and their relation to one another are intentionally introduced in an underdetermined way. Readers are invited to wonder what it means that Jesus is Messiah-Lord, as the rest of Luke and Acts will go on to explore.
More often, however, ambiguity presents readers with distinct options that they must decide between. Suzanna Millar offers an excellent description of this phenomenon:
At the level of textual details, one interpretation might foreground certain features. This constellation of features forms an overall picture in the reader’s mind, functioning as an interpretive guide for the rest of the text. The reader uses it to infer the meaning of ambiguous expressions and to fill in textual gaps. Another interpretation, though, might shuffle these layers. An alternative textual constellation comes to the fore, and an alternative picture emerges.Footnote 44
The key point here is that these alternative interpretations cannot exist together at the same time: ‘These readings, which both have warrant in the textual details, seem mutually exclusive. It is not possible to affirm both simultaneously or to harmonize them together; we can see both options – but not at the same time. Our minds can only oscillate between them’.Footnote 45 To read is to make decisions about what we are reading, to read things in a particular way and not others. Thus, to appreciate this kind of ambiguity, we must become re-readers. We must read again but differently to observe how the narrative world thus constructed is different from our previous readings. Such a mode of reading is particularly reflective and is less concerned with finding right answers than it is with exploring the various possibilities inherent to the text.Footnote 46 Avinoam Sharon offers a fruitful example of this sort of reading in his discussion of the portrayal of David’s height in 1 Samuel 16–17. He writes, ‘The Bible gives the impression that David was both short and tall without expressly saying either. The descriptions are sufficiently ambiguous to allow us to imagine David either way’.Footnote 47
To further explore the phenomenon of ambiguity, we will examine at greater length two instances of ambiguity that invite re-reading in Luke and Acts. The first is an instance of verbal ambiguity in the Gospel of Luke; the second is an instance of narrative ambiguity that arises from the beginning of Acts.
Reading ambiguity in Luke and Acts
When Jesus is twelve, his family travels to Jerusalem for Passover. After accidentally leaving him behind in Jerusalem, they find him in the temple, sitting with the teachers, listening and asking questions (Luke 2:41–47). Mary, apparently confused and offended, asks Jesus why he has treated them like this (2:48). Jesus responds, ‘Why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that it is necessary for me to be ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατροῦ μου?’ (2:49). This final phrase is a long-standing crux interpretum. The various proposals essentially boil down to two readings.Footnote 48 The first reading takes τοῖς to be a neuter article, giving the meaning ‘involved in the things of my father’.Footnote 49 The second takes the whole phrase as an idiom referring to the temple, that is, ‘in my father’s house’.Footnote 50 While many scholars tend to opt decisively for one reading or another,Footnote 51 some say the phrase may be intentionally ambiguous.Footnote 52
These scholars are likely right to see here an example of intentional ambiguity. First of all, neither reading can be discounted on philological grounds,Footnote 53 as confirmed by the divergent readings in the ancient versions.Footnote 54 Furthermore, either reading makes good sense as an answer to Mary’s question. Jesus is in his father’s house since he is in the temple. He is also engaged in his father’s things since he is discussing the things of God with Israel’s teachers, foreshadowing Jesus’ later discussions with Israel’s leaders when he returns to the temple (Luke 20). While the reading of ‘house’ makes particularly good sense in the immediate narrative context, de Jonge is right to point out that if this is Luke’s intention, ‘he expressed himself in an unnatural and even extraordinary manner’.Footnote 55 Elsewhere Luke does not hesitate to use οἶκος (house) to refer to the temple (Luke 6:4; 11:51; 19:46; Acts 7:47). This, as well as Mary and Joseph’s reaction, ‘And they did not understand the word which he spoke to them’ (2:50), suggest that there is more going on here.Footnote 56
Even so, it is one thing to say that a phrase is intentionally ambiguous; it is quite another to say what the effect of the ambiguity is. This point is sometimes lost on hermeneuticists such as Silva when he writes, ‘If we can establish that an author has used ambiguity for literary purposes, then our problem is resolved’.Footnote 57 Identifying a literary device is not the same thing as interpreting it. This can be more difficult than it seems. Consider how interpreters assume that intentional ambiguity is simply a way to evoke two meanings at once. For example, Dennis Sylva offers a crude reading of this ambiguity, arguing that it simply evokes the meaning of ‘in my father’s house’ and ‘involved in my father’s things’ at the same time.Footnote 58 Better are those who focus on the effect on the readers. Mark Coleridge connects the readers’ experience with that of Mary and Joseph, ‘The effect of this ambiguity is to leave the readers sharing the parents’ perplexity and asking what it might mean to be “in the things of my father”?’Footnote 59 This is a question that will only come up later on in in the Gospel narrative as characters wonder about the nature of Jesus’ work (7:18–23) and his relationship to the temple (20:1–8). Thus, Jesus’ cryptic response offers the readers a chance to reflect on how Jesus will engage in God’s work, not only as he teaches but also when he returns to Jerusalem to suffer and be raised as was necessary according to the scriptures (24:26).Footnote 60 Yet, it also invites readers to think about the central role that the temple itself will play in the Lukan narrative.Footnote 61 Notably, the Gospel both begins (1:9) and ends in the temple (24:53). Acts also frequently centres around the temple (Acts 3–4; 5:17–42; 21:27–36). The temple is not something Jesus’ followers leave behind as the message of Jesus spreads.Footnote 62 Thus, both readings of Luke 2:49 make good sense in the larger narrative context and invite readers to reflect on how these themes develop and intersect throughout the narrative.
A very different sort of ambiguity arises in Peter’s sermon at Pentecost when he says, ‘Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you all crucified’ (Acts 2:36). To be sure, there is nothing here that is ambiguous at the sentence level. The ambiguity only arises when readers try to make sense of this verse in relation to other verses which talk about Jesus being Lord and Messiah since at least his birth (e.g., Luke 2:11). Particularly notable is Jesus’ claim to have been previously anointed in Luke 4:18. Even Acts will talk about Jesus having been anointed by God at his baptism (10:38). Accordingly, Acts 2:36 gives rise to an ambiguity when readers ask how it is that Jesus can be said to be made Lord and Messiah at his resurrection when the narrative previously calls him Lord and Messiah well before his resurrection.Footnote 63
One of the more common solutions in modern biblical scholarship is to say that Luke is a conservative redactor who, whether intentionally or not, is simply preserving a source which speaks of Jesus in a way that does not match the rest of the narrative.Footnote 64 It is impossible to disprove this conjecture. However, Rowe has helpfully argued that such readings (regardless of whether they are correct) engage in a contextual sleight-of-hand whereby ‘a non-Lukan context is substituted for the Lukan one.… Even to get off the ground with an analysis of the meaning of Acts 2:36 for Luke’s christology, we will have to work with the Lukan context, that is, Luke-Acts’.Footnote 65
When we do this, we see that there are in fact numerous other passages which also talk about Jesus undergoing a change. When Jesus tells the religious leaders the parable of the wicked tenants, he closes by quoting Psalm 118: ‘The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the cornerstone’ (Luke 20:17). Earlier, in the parable of the minas, the nobleman must leave for a far country in order to receive his kingship (19:12). Even in Peter’s Pentecost sermon, he says that when Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God, he received ‘the promise of the spirit’ which he then poured out on his disciples (Acts 2:33).
There are thus two ways of talking about the time that Jesus receives his authority as Lord and Messiah. In one way of speaking, Jesus has possessed this authority from the beginning. In another way of speaking, Jesus receives this authority at his exaltation. There are a number of proposed ways of reading this broad narrative ambiguity in Luke and Acts. Nevertheless, many tend to collapse the ambiguity either by saying that Jesus is only said to be Lord or Messiah before the exaltation in an improper or proleptic way,Footnote 66 or by saying that Acts 2:36 merely means that Jesus is publicly revealed to be what he was all along at his exaltation.Footnote 67 Sternberg’s comments regarding scholarly failures to appreciate ambiguity are again helpful:
The endless critical warfare…misses (as well as, unwittingly, establishes) the poetic point. And so do the attempts to resolve the quarrel by blaming the work itself: the incoherencies that derive from its history of transmission – the staple of biblical source criticism – or from its sloppy execution or even from its disregard for clarity. It is not that any of these explanations of incoherence may be ruled out a priori, but that their abuse obscures the scope and working of ambiguity as a constructive force.Footnote 68
Thus, better approaches to the narrative ambiguity that arises at Acts 2:36 will avoid prematurely resolving these two different ways of talking about Jesus’ authority. Instead, the readers are invited to see how both ways of speaking are true. Jesus is born son of David and son of God (Luke 1:32). He is publicly recognised to be son of God by evil spirits (4:3, 41) and God himself (3:22; 9:35). He is rightly proclaimed Messiah by Peter (9:20) and those who execute him (23:35, 39). And yet there is a reason that the kingdom does not come right away (19:11; Acts 1:6). The builders must first reject the cornerstone (Luke 20:17; Acts 4:11) as the scriptures testify (Luke 24:26, 46; Acts 3:18), and Jesus must go to his father to receive his kingship (Luke 19:12) before he returns to serve as judge of all people, Jews and Gentiles, the living and the dead (Acts 10:42; 17:31). Both ways of speaking are essential to understanding the message of Luke and Acts.
Conclusion
This article has discussed how interpreters of scripture should think about ambiguity in biblical texts. Ambiguity occurs when readers cannot decide between more than one viable reading of a text. Most ambiguities can be resolved through further reading as readers try out the different readings in question. Yet sometimes the alternative readings work equally well.Footnote 69 In these cases, readers should resist the urge to collapse the ambiguity and instead observe how each reading contributes in its own way to the overall literary and theological effect of the work.Footnote 70 Two brief examples will help illustrate the value of this approach for biblical studies and biblical theology.
First, scholars of the New Testament are often at odds over to what degree the various writings in the New Testament are best read against the background of Graeco-Roman culture and literature on the one hand and Jewish culture and literature on the other.Footnote 71 While many scholars have grown to appreciate how much these cultural backgrounds overlapped in the ancient world, there is still significant disagreement over which backgrounds readers should presuppose as primary and listen for more intently.Footnote 72 However, a productive alternative model has been proposed by Daniel Marguerat with regard to Luke and Acts. Marguerat argues that Luke and Acts often engage in what he calls ‘double signification’, that is, many elements in the narrative make good sense against both Jewish and Graeco-Roman backgrounds.Footnote 73 Consider the centurion’s pronouncement upon Jesus’ death that this man is δίκαιος. This can be read as a pronouncement of Jesus’ legal innocence in the manner of a Hellenistic innocent martyr or as a pronouncement of Jesus’ righteousness in the manner of the righteous sufferer from the Psalms.Footnote 74 Likewise the story of Paul’s shipwreck in Acts 27 can be productively read against the story of either Jonah or Odysseus.Footnote 75 Marguerat goes on to argue that this dynamic questions the polarising readings which insist on reading Luke and Acts either for Jewish or Graeco-Roman readers. Instead, there is no need to decide between the two. The ambiguity of Luke and Acts allows for productive reading against either background. In other words, different readers from different cultural backgrounds may be invited to see different (but complementary) things in the same text. There is no reason to think that this dynamic may not hold for other New Testament writings as well.
Second, this perspective on ambiguity has also been lacking from discussions of New Testament Christology. In the past several decades there has been a resurgence of interest in what is sometimes called, ‘early high Christology’, which proposes, among other things, that the Christian belief in Jesus’ divinity is not a relatively late development but was present as early as the first generation of Jesus’ disciples.Footnote 76 One drawback, however, has been a failure to recognise that Jesus’ divine identity is often revealed mysteriously. Later statements of Jesus’ identity and mission value precision and clarity, such as the Nicene or Athanasian Creeds or to a lesser extent the Gospel of John. However, other writings, such as the Synoptic Gospels, seem to value maintaining a sense of holy wonder at the revelation of the identity of Jesus. In other words, I do not dispute the arguments that many have made regarding the Synoptics’ indirect divine Christology.Footnote 77 My point is that too many have not reckoned with the fact that this indirectness, this imprecision, is no accident; it is part and parcel of the christological presentation. One scholar who understands this well is Richard Hays, who writes regarding the Gospel of Mark:
The man Jesus is somehow – in a way that defies understanding – the God of Israel, present among us as the One whom wind and sea obey, and yet at last nailed to a cross. The community of those to whom this apocalyptic secret is given may dare to speak of this awful mystery only in hints, whispers, and scriptural allusions.… They are the possessors of a secret whose full revelation lies in the future. Mark’s hermeneutical strategy, therefore, is to provide cryptic scriptural pointers that draw the discerning reader into the heart of the eschatological mystery.Footnote 78
Scholars are right to unpack the mysteries contained in scripture. They do well, though, to remember that they are still dealing with mysteries. Being a good reader means recognising that one cannot and should not solve every problem. It means recognising that if readers of scripture are recipients of divine mysteries, then perhaps the best reaction is to follow Mary who ‘stored up all these words, pondering them in her heart’ (Luke 2:19).
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