Keeping clear about "transferral" and centurions
(Originally published at What's Wrong With the World. Link to original post at 'permalink' below.)
This post is about various possible interpretations of the episode of the centurion and his servant, narrated in Luke 7 and Matthew 8.
When we think about the Gospels or any historical account, or even about daily speech, we need to make careful distinctions. Unfortunately, careful distinctions are not always a hallmark of modern biblical scholarship. One place where such a distinction is not consistently made is between fact-changing “transferral” and non-fact-changing “transferral.”
If I say, “I’m building a house,” anyone who knew even a small amount about both me and current American culture would immediately know that I am not personally building the house with a hammer and nails. They would know, from my situation, that I’m hiring someone else to build it. This is obviously non-fact-changing “transferral”--I’m referring to myself as building the house while commissioning it, knowing that everyone will understand.
Another kind of non-fact-changing transferral is mere ambiguity, where the ambiguity is not even intentional. If I say that “Bob asked me to lend him $50” when Bob asked our mutual friend Joe to deliver the request on his behalf (perhaps thinking that Joe would be a good advocate), I’m merely abbreviating by not mentioning Joe’s involvement. This is potentially ambiguous, but if I realize that someone has gotten the impression that I saw Bob personally on that occasion, I can always explain: “Oh, sorry to be unclear. Bob didn’t come to me personally. He sent Joe to ask. I didn’t see Bob that day.”
But fact-changing transferral would be deliberately narrating in a way that looks like Bob came to me personally, when I know that he didn’t. It would be likely to confuse people, but not unintentionally. I would be intending to make it look like Bob came in a way that couldn’t be culturally seen (as in the first case) or merely an accident (as in the second case). My hearers might well get the wrong impression, and I would know that and be doing it on purpose.
If someone tells you that most evangelical scholars hold that Matthew “had” the centurion come to Jesus personally when he really didn’t, go back and read those they are citing and ask yourself: Is this scholar really talking about fact-changing transferral, or is a plausible reading of what he says that he is talking about non-fact-changing transferral?
I would say that a great many of those who have written on the issue of the centurion’s servant have meant non-fact-changing transferral of, perhaps at most, the “accidentally ambiguous” type. To assert, when they do not say so, that they are talking about Matthew’s deliberately having the centurion come personally when he knew that was not true is to go well beyond the evidence. Remember, too, that if Matthew was written before Luke, then readers of Matthew might very well never have heard the version of the story in which the servants came instead of the centurion. How, then, would they not have been confused if Matthew deliberately tried to make it look like the centurion came personally though he knew that this was not true? If this was a fact-changing literary device used by Matthew, it would have been difficult to detect even by a conjectural, comparative method. And even if they had already heard the version we find in Luke, why would they have concluded that Matthew’s was intentionally non-factual rather than merely having a question about precisely what happened?
Michael Licona is now “co-opting” harmonizations of these passages, though in all probability many if not most traditional harmonizers are speaking of non-fact-changing transferral in this passage. In a recent ETS paper he claimed that fact-changing transferral in this passage is the “majority” position among evangelicals and listed a number of scholars as allegedly endorsing fact-changing transferral in this passage. But several of these, such as D. A. Carson, speak of the passage in a way that very plausibly looks like they are speaking of non-fact-changing transferral. In his commentary on Matthew, Carson writes briefly about this difference in a way that is quite typical:
Probably Matthew, following his tendency to condense, makes no mention of the servants in order to lay the greater emphasis on faith according to the principle qui facit per alium facit per se (“he who acts by another acts himself”)—a principle the centurion’s argument implies (vv.8–9).
Yet Licona lists many names as though they agree with him that Matthew engaged in fact-changing transferral by deliberately having the centurion come personally to Jesus though he knew that this was not true. These would all need to be checked individually to see if they actually say this. See here for another and even more stunningly inaccurate instance of such an attempt at co-opting a well-known inerrantist harmonizer to the literary device views.
These sorts of confusions and equivocations must be avoided, as they simply make it difficult for us even to understand one another. They can thus lead us to believe that “everyone agrees” that the Gospel authors thought it was okay to change the facts invisibly when this is not, in fact, the case. (Not that popularity would make a view true anyway, of course.)
Remember: If the literary device views are just non-controversially saying what everybody already knew and thought, then where is the new, important contribution? It is extremely important not to allow equivocation to create a strange situation where we are simultaneously saying, “Hey, this is no big deal. It’s just harmless stuff that everybody already agreed” and “This is extremely helpful to give us new understanding of how the Gospels are using literary devices.”
Another important point: If you want to consider yourself an inerrantist and you think at the same time that Matthew wrote realistically and invisibly of the centurion as coming to Jesus personally when this was not true, how does it help for you to say that Matthew knew that what he was conveying by his writing was untrue? How does that make you a better inerrantist? How are you more of an inerrantist for saying that than you would be if you called this an error? I submit that it doesn’t help at all. See my two-part interview with Phil Fernandes here and here.
And please remember: None of this has anything to do with a readily recognizable figure of speech like, “Pilate took Jesus and scourged him” (John 19:1), an example Licona attempted to use in his recent dialogue with Richard Howe. It would be foolish to say that John is trying to make it look like Pilate personally scourged Jesus. He was precisely not trying to make it look like that, because he knew that it would be immediately well-understood that Pilate did nothing of the kind. He was not “making” or “having” Pilate scourge Jesus personally. He was not trying to lead his readers to imagine or picture Pilate scourging Jesus personally. The very fact that Dr. Licona and others have to say that Matthew made or had the centurion come to Jesus personally shows that they are not talking about a mere manner of speaking but about something that is completely different and, indeed, incompatible with such a mere, easily-understood manner of speaking.
Think clearly. Reason carefully. Then decide.
Disclaimer: I am not myself an inerrantist. But I like to think clearly about the issue. I myself, as Licona is now fond of pointing out, as if to "out" me, lean toward agreeing with Licona that Matthew portrays the centurion throughout the passage as being personally present. But (in contrast to Licona) I do Matthew the courtesy of thinking that he believed what he said. This presumably means that, if the servants really came instead as in Luke (which I'm also inclined to think), Matthew apparently made a good-faith error. I am also not entirely closed to the harmonization given by John Wesley and others according to which the centurion came at the very end but did not speak up (just to see what was happening?) and Jesus recognized him and spoke to him at Matt. 8:13. But I am somewhat inclined against this as it would make the references to the centurion at different points in the passage have different meanings, which does not seem plausible as a form of narration by a reporter. Again, if the idea that Matthew made a good-faith error here is unwelcome, that's fine, but please remember that you gain nothing by saying that Matthew inserted a deliberate, willful, invisible, realistic falsehood into the narration. At that point, you should probably go with an available harmonization such as non-fact-changing transferral involving some sort of accidental ambiguity on Matthew's part.
My new book, The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices, is available for pre-order and will be fully out on December 10. In it I discuss the many (including much more radical) fact-changing literary devices proposed by theorists and present and defend an alternative, nuanced, positive model of the Gospels' reportage. Pre-order your copy now and follow me on Facebook!
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