1. Ernst Baasland, Parables and Rhetoric in the Sermon on the Mount:New
Approaches to a Classical Text. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen
Testament351.MohrSiebck, Tuebingen:2015.XXXI + 703pp.
This significant book is an extensive study of metaphoricallanguage and
parables in the rhetoric of the Sermon on the Mount. The book’s opening
sentences state the topic, “Speeches can changereality. The Sermon on the
Mount has probably changed the world more than any otherspeech.” But since
the SM has been understood as a radical challenge, people have perceived that
it is “only for the first generation,”or“only for devoted Christian disciples,”
or, I would add,“only for idealists.” As an alternative, Baasland proposes,“that
the metaphoricaland rhetoricallanguage clarifies the radical nature of the
demands much better.” He argues that although “about one third of the SM are
parables or metaphoricallanguage” studies of the SM neglect parables or
metaphoricallanguage,or conversely, studies of parables neglect the
metaphoricallanguage of the SM and its function.
The SM, Baasland notes (p.14),has at least thirty different metaphors: salt,
light, city, shrine, court,eye, trumpet,closet, treasure,moth,rust, thieves, eye,
body,master,bird, stature,lilies, measure,beam,log, dog,swine, stone,snake,
way, gate, wolves, sheep,tree, fruit, house,foundation,rock. Many (not all) are
universal images intended to open up for audiences wider applications. To
restrict meaning to only one understanding ofeach of these ideas shuts down
the meaning of metaphorforin metaphoricallanguage, application of one
element to anotheropens up a wider, polysemic reality. Parables and metaphors
in fact interpret the rhetorical strategy ofthe SM since they open up the
restrictive understandingthat the SM focuses on “strenuous commands”
(p.611) by giving audiences insight into God’s commands as a design for life
lived according to God’s purposes. In fact,the wisdom characterofparables
and sayings in the SM is its most important feature.
The central part of the book,chapters two to eight,offers specific
interpretationsofeach line of the SM. Scarcely does a page fail to offer insights
on the Greek text of Matthew and its rhetorical features. Forexample, the
section “Parables in the Diatribe on Anxiety (Matthew 6:25-34)”(pp.373-412)
begins with a discussion of anxiety as a background forthe text.It continues
with source critical comparisons between Luke and Matthew’s presentations of
the theme alongside sayings from the Gospelof Thomas (reading the Coptic
text),POxy.655,and Justin Martyr into account. Rhetoricalanalysis follows,
with attention to the sociologicalcontext. The genre of the passage is a
philosophicaldiatribe,concerning anxiety orworry, a theme found in Greek

2. materials and wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible. The imperative in the
passage to look at/considerclosely birds of the air is not only a direction for
life but for thinking and imagination in orderto establish a learning process
(p.400). To observe the birds of the air is then to see the earth as God’s
creation.The point is to see God’s way of acting as a way of directing one’s
own life. The imperative,“Do not worry/ Do not be anxious/ Take No
Thought”is thus explained not as a command but as exhortation orcounsel
giving directions (p.625-627).
This book has the rare potentialof changing the way we look at the function of
language and audience in the Sermon on the Mount.It is essentialreading for
everyone who cares to understand and think more deeply about the SM and its
application.
Deirdre Good
Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Drew Theological Schooland
Theologian in Residence,Trinity Wall Street