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Receiving the Kingdom of God as a Child: Children and Riches in Luke 18.15ff.*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Stephen Fowl
Stephen Fowl
Affiliation:
(Department of Theology, Loyola College in Maryland, 4501 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21210, USA)
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Type
Short Studies
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , January 1993 , pp. 153 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 The following is a brief, and by no means exhaustive list of commentators who read 18.17 this way: Evans, C. F., Saint Luke (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990) 648Google Scholar (renunciation of pretensions to greatness and achievement); Fitzmyer, J. A., The Gospel according to Luke (2 vols.; Anchor Bible; Garden City: Doubleday, 1985) 2.1191Google Scholar (humility, openness, sheer receptivity); Goulder, Michael D., Luke: A New Paradigm (2 vols.; JSNTS 20; Sheffield: JSOT, 1989) 2.669Google Scholar (humility); Grundmann, W., Das Evangelium nach Lukas (3rd ed.; Berlin: Evangelische, 1966) 353Google Scholar (humility); Kodell, J., ‘Luke and the Children: The Beginning and the End of the Great Interpolation’, CBQ 49 (1977) 424–5Google Scholar (humility); Marshall, I. Howard, Commentary on Luke (New International Greek Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978) 681–2Google Scholar (humility, sheer receptivity); Tannehill, R. C., The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) 255Google Scholar (humility); in the Oxford annotated version of the NRSV teachable humility is the childlike attribute one must exhibit to enter the kingdom.

2 While almost every scholar agrees that Luke is dependent on Mark's gospel at this point, most of them rely on Matthew in order to explicate the text as opposed to explaining where the text came from. See for example Dupont, J., Les Béatitudes (3 vols.; 2nd ed.; Paris: Gabalda, 1969) 2.161–81.Google Scholar

3 Johnson, Luke T. in The Literary Function of Possessions in Luke-Acts (SBLDS 39; Chico: Scholars, 1977) 144Google Scholar, briefly notes that the story of the rich ruler in 18.18–30 ‘appears as a contrast to the reception of the kingdom ώς παιδίον. While I agree that this is the case, Johnson neither gives substantial reasons for this view nor does he display the nature of this contrast.

4 Kodell, ‘Luke and the Children’, 425, even goes so far as to say that the episode in Luke can be considered complete without the addition of 18.17. It is hard to know what such a claim might mean unless one is committed to reading Luke only in the light of Matthew.

5 So Taylor, Vincent, The Gospel according to St Mark (London: Macmillan, 1952) 422Google Scholar; Nineham, Dennis, Saint Mark (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1963) 268Google Scholar; and Stock, Augustine, The Method and Message of Mark (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1989) 270.Google Scholar

6 Fitzmyer, 2.1191; Grundmann, 353 and Marshall, 681 all move in this direction. Kodell, 423ff., goes even further, arguing that 18.14–23 form a pattern where the Pharisee and the rich ruler are contrasted with the tax collector and children as a way of closing off Luke's interpolation of Mark which began at 9.50. By focusing on Luke's compositional technique in relation to his sources Kodell ends up ignoring the semantic features of the text which tie 18.1–8 with w. 9–14 and which separate 18.9–14 from w. 15ff.

7 In contrast to Luke, the beginning of Mark 10.17 provides a temporal interruption between Jesus' claims about receiving the kingdom as a child and the encounter with the rich man in 10.17ff. See also Grundmann, 354 and Taylor, 425.

8 Fitzmyer, 2.1196 is aware of these connections, but he makes little of them.

9 Though as Fitzmyer, 2.1198, notes, we have no reason to doubt the sincerity of the ruler's question.

10 The phrase τὰ ïδια connotes ownership not ‘homes’ as in the NRSV. See 6.41, 44; 10.34; Acts 1.7, 19, 25; 3.12; 4.23, 32; 13.36; 20.28; 21.6; 24.23, 24; 25.19; 28.30. See also Fitzmyer, 2.1205, Marshall, 688 and Schmidt, T. E., Hostility to Wealth in the Synoptic Gospels (JSNTS 15; Sheffield: JSOT, 1987) 158.Google Scholar

11 Almost all commentators note that Zacchaeus stands as a contrast to the rich ruler. That is, he is the rich man who can only be saved by an act of God. Very few commentators, however, make any connections between the story of Zacchaeus with idea of receiving the kingdom as a child. For exceptions to this general rule see Hobbie, F. W., ‘Luke 19.1–10’, Int 31 (1977) 285–90Google Scholar; Loewe, William, ‘Towards an Interpretation of Lk. 19:1–10’, CBQ 36 (1974) 321–31Google Scholar; O'Hanlon, John, ‘The Story of Zacchaeus and the Lukan Ethic’, JSNT 12 (1981) 2–26Google Scholar. Unfortunately, neither O'Hanlon nor Hobbie state the nature of this connection. Loewe claims that the description of Zacchaeus as being short ties the Zacchaeus story to both 18.17 and 9.48 (see 325). Since Loewe does not explain how being short indicates that one has received the kingdom as a child we are still left wondering about the nature of the connections between 18.15–17 and 19.1–10.

12 The traditional view of 19.8 is that Zacchaeus is commiting himself to a future course of action as an implicit sign of repentance. There is a recent body of interpretation, however, which reads 19.8 as Zacchaeus' defence to Jesus against the crowd's complaint that he is a sinner. (The most recent advocate of this view is Mitchell, A. C., ‘Zacchaeus Revisited: Luke 19:8 as Defense‘, Bib 71 [1990] 153–76.Google Scholar) On this view, Zacchaeus is not pledging a change in his behaviour. Rather, he is referring to his usual custom as a sort of apologia. I am not sure that my reading depends on taking a side in this debate. Nevertheless, it seems that the logic of the story leads one to read 19.8 in the traditional manner. For example, if Zacchaeus is in the regular practice of giving half his goods to the poor, he could hardly qualify as ‘rich’ (19.2). Secondly, Jesus' claim to have come to seek and save the lost in 19.10 seems to draw its force from the fact that Zacchaeus really was in some sense lost. For a recent defence of this traditional view see Hamm, D., S.J., ‘Luke 19:8 Once Again: Does Zacchaeus Defend or Resolve?’, JBL 107 (1988) 431–7.Google Scholar

13 It is indeed interesting that many of the traits of babies which Augustine points to in his Confessions (Bk 1 ch. 7) as evidence of their sinfulness are similar to the characteristics Luke uses to illustrate receiving the kingdom of God as a child. Indeed, one of the few, if not the only case in which it seems that such childlike devotion to an object of desire does not lapse into selfishness and greed noted by Augustine is when such devotion is directed towards a parent.