Intertextuality or the Decentralization of Meaning

Abstract

Part one introduces a concept of intertextuality based on categorical semiotics. Part two describes the method and part three provides an example, which considers the New Testament versions of Jesus walking on the sea alongside Lucian’s story about the Corkfeet.

1. Theory

In 1966 in Paris, a young Bulgarian literature student named Julia Kristeva coined the term intertextuality with reference to Mikhail M. Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism.1 Since then, it has had an enormous influence on a wide range of disciplines. Many use the term today to refer to the inter-relationship between two or more texts. The spatial preposition inter, which in keeping with its meaning refers to an in-between space, apparently stands quite generally for an assumed relationship between two or more texts. In biblical studies, however, this spatial concept is typically assumed to align with the traditional interests of source criticism through a two-fold movement that focuses on the reference of a later text to an earlier one (Cf. Alkier 2023). With that kind of focus, the dynamic preposition inter, which ought to bring into play a creative, textually wrought relationship between equal texts, becomes, in the usual hermeneutical manner, a static in. Such an approach thinks differently to Kristeva’s semiotical concept of intertextuality only in terms of the linear, temporal logic of a timeline.

This improper use of the word intertextuality often also tends to shorten the term “textuality” to simply “text”. The search for traces of one text in another text then takes the place of inter-textuality. While the concept of intertextuality should offer new, dynamic and multi-perspectival approaches to the practice of interpretation, the tendency has instead been to perform a kind of allegorical shift that views intertextuality as functioning like a decoding machine. The fundamental question of what constitutes texts, i.e., what their textuality consists of, is thereby mostly ignored.

By way of this allegorical shift, the word “intertextuality” itself can come to be coopted by the dogmatically driven search for the Old Testament in the New Testament, which is, in fact, often a dogmatically driven search to find that what the New Testament writers meant was already what the Old Testament actually/originally meant. These approaches, even when they use the word intertextuality, read the Bible as a monolog. The dialogically different voices are reduced to one voice only. The old theological perspectives are given a new coat of paint, as it were. Such an approach can use the new language of intertextuality without ever having to grapple with the spatial-theoretical, text-logical, semiotical, hermeneutical, and canon-theological issues connected with the term.

With this kind of use of the term, however, the concept of intertextuality is deprived of its point. Intertextual research should allow for basic questions about human communication to be discussed. These have a direct impact on what can be meant when seeking the “meaning” of a text (Cf. Alkier 2018), of where and how to look for the meaning of a text, of how such meaning is found or constructed, and of what characterizes the symbolic structure of a text, of what a text can achieve and of what its limits are.2

Historical–critical approaches to exegesis are oriented toward the preposition “in”. They therefore think of meaning as being located in fixed places such as in an individual text or in the intention of the author or of the redactor. In contrast, the preposition “inter” replaces the idea of a singular location of meaning with the idea that meaning can be found in the dynamic space of textual relationships. This space and these relationships have to be constantly recreated through the creative work of text producers and text recipients. The presumption that meaning resides in one location (“in” the text) leads to the idea that one must seek out the meaning or even uncover it through quasi-archaeological investigation. One has to find or reconstruct the meaning that exists within the text. In contrast, the concept of intertextuality decentralizes this search for the location of meaning. The “inter” refers to an in-between space that occurs when, with the help of the work of the bodies of actual receivers of texts, one perceives text relations by stepping in-between or mediating between them. This is where their interpretation can emerge.

One of the limits of the textuality of texts is that textual bodies, apart from meaning-generating human bodies, do not generate meaning, can say nothing, and can neither interpret nor mean anything. Just as musical notes on a page do not make musical sounds, texts cannot create meaning without their symbolic structure being perceived, interpreted, and performed by creative recipients. Textuality and therefore intertextuality are only possible because of the dynamic interaction of textual bodies and human bodies. Intertextuality therefore proves to be a special case of intermediality. The hallmark of intermediality, however, is the decentralization of meaning. Meaning cannot be definitively preserved “in” a text, and consequently, meaning is not something that can be found again or reconstructed.

Certainly, authors exercise intentions when they write texts, or rather, they have several intentions, some of which they are aware of, while others are hidden even from themselves. What is crucial for the limits of textuality, however, is that the intention located in the body of the writer cannot be attached to the signs of their utterance. Texts emerge as utterances, in German “Äußerungen”, that have to come out of the human body of the sign producer. Intentions, on the other hand, remain bound to the bodies of those who express them. Those who receive the texts do not receive the intention of the producer. That remains inside the person expressing themselves. Rather, they receive their utterance, to which intention cannot be attached but which emerges outside and becomes perceptible as a sign structure that needs to be interpreted.

Textual interpretation is not able to explore the psychological state of writers’ brains. Rather, its proper purview is the philological analysis of the expressed sign structure, which is assumed to result in a meaningful whole when read as a text. But rigorous philological analysis of a text often identifies various possible references for the given signs during the syntactical analysis. Semantic investigations open up even greater scope, while text-pragmatic assessments necessary are made even more imprecisely. This is because the latter are based not only on syntactical and semantic decisions but also on hypotheses about the respective communication situations that must be assumed and are thus hypothetical locations in historical and medial contexts. These ambiguities in the interpretation of texts are due to the ambiguity of signs. Texts, like any other medium of human communication, are sign structures that are only given meaning in the act of their production and in the act of their reception. Meaning then evaporates again until the text is re-read anew.

What the concept of intertextuality points to is initially something seemingly quite banal: no singular text was written without knowledge of other texts and no text can be read without knowledge of other texts. Narrow concepts of intertextuality emphasize the first point in a production-oriented manner. As such, they are methodically limited to the interaction of a text to be interpreted with texts that its author demonstrably knew or could have known with a high degree of plausibility. In the field of biblical studies, the best example of such production-oriented approaches to intertextuality research would be Richard B. Hays, who significantly initiated exegetical intertextuality research with his book “Echoes of Scripture”.3

The second aspect, that no text can be read without knowledge of other texts, emphasizes reception-oriented approaches to intertextuality research. This focus limits the range of texts to be linked, too, but it is more open than a production-oriented approach. Every textual connection that real or even fictional readers have made or could have made can become the subject of reception-oriented intertextuality research. A reception-oriented intertextual perspective not only asks how a reader understood a specific text but also what other texts he connects to it, and his activated intertextual universe is part of his understanding of the book he comments on. Victorinus von Pettau (* ca. 230 Pannonien, + ca. 304), for example, wrote his commentary (Cf. De Poetovio 1997) on the Book of Revelation in the third part of the third Christian century and most of his quotes relate the Book of Revelation to the prophecy of Isaiah, Daniel, some Psalms, the Gospel of Matthew and some letters of Paul, especially 1 Corinthians. His intertextual strategy is to understand the Book of Revelation in harmony with those scriptures that are widespread and commonly accepted in Christian communities. He reads not only the Book of Revelation from the perspective of the quoted texts but also, for example, Paul from the perspective of the Book of Revelation.

There is also a third approach that is a less analytical but much more creatively generative area of intertextuality or intermediality with nearly no limits. This third aspect is of the utmost importance for cultural and specifically for theological practice: one way that biblical texts become interwoven with new sign complexes is by being read together with other texts and other media. The cultural production, especially of Europe, America, and several parts of Africa, is full of literature, plays, paintings, sculptures, films, and computer games that are more or less obviously in dialogue with biblical texts. One can think, for example, of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy or of Goethe’s Faust or of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. More recent are examples from film and television such as Derek Jarman’s Jesus-inspired film The Garden, Star Wars, The Lion King, or Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. There are even biblical productions by pop stars like Madonna and Michael Jackson. Last but not least, one can think of the use of biblical proverbs in everyday language. The multimedia nature of contemporary Christian services should also not be forgotten, especially as these consist of newly designed intertextual and intermedial interplays of various Bible texts, songs, quoted and newly written prayers, gestures, clothing and room designs.

Representatives of production-oriented intertextuality approaches and those of reception-oriented approaches influenced by postmodern theories have heavily criticized each other. They have largely refused to work together. This is unfortunate and unnecessary. By way of contrast, I have tried to introduce an integrative model (Cf. Alkier 2005, 2023) to show that all three perspectives of intertextual work are highly useful for exegetical and theological work. These approaches do not have to be played off against each other so long as each one recognizes its own limitations and perspectives and can make it clear what can and cannot be examined by the used approach.

What is critical for intertextual approaches, however, is that each of these interpretive procedures be measured by the extent to which it is actually intertextual arguments. Intertextual arguments do not seek the meaning of texts in the texts. Rather, they look at the meaning effects that only arise from reading at least two texts of equal status together. This means, for example, that one not only read Romans from the perspective of Genesis but also read the other way by interpreting Genesis from the perspective of Romans. What happens when one reads texts together or links them with other media? Intertextual and intermedial studies address this question.

That Christian use of biblical texts is actually an intertextual and intermedial practice should be clear enough. I still see, however, a need for theoretical reflection on Christian exegetical and theological practice. Exegetical practice and theological reflection that are intertextually and intermedially informed will no longer look for the one meaning of the Bible or the one intention of, for example, the Apostle Paul. Rather, it will devote itself to the critical philological analysis of the dynamics of the texts as different voices read together. The biblical canon itself offers a superb example of these dynamics. The reality of the biblical canon encourages each book to be read together with every other book. It encourages readers to listen to the symphony of different voices, to notice what these voices have in common and where they differ, and even to see where they support and critique each other. By way of this decentralized approach that recognizes the different voices in the canon can the richness of the Bible be seen, a richness that cannot be harmonized to one voice only or reduced to a dogmatically determined “center of scripture”. In the Reformation doctrine of scripture, the slogan “scripture interprets itself” (scriptura sui ipsius interpres (Luther 2006)) became influential (Cf. Alkier 2019). It is, however, essential to recall that this dialogue of biblical voices can only occur in the human bodies of those who receive the texts. This is why biblical intertextuality is always necessarily intermediality. Theological theory and practice that are open to intertextual theory will not only be rewarded by discerning new possibilities in the biblical texts but will also perceive with fresh clarity the theological and cultural effects that biblical texts have had over the centuries and continue to have even today. This is the aim of the Regensburg DFG project “Beyond Canon”, which not only investigates the numerous texts, paintings, sculptures, and even buildings that are influenced by biblical texts but also how these cultural productions have generated new potentialities for meaning in biblical texts and continue to do so.

I would like to promote an appropriate conceptual use of the word intertextuality so that it can be used in a way that satisfies the epistemological requirements of a scientific term. Simply using the word intertextuality does not necessarily mean that the one using it is working with an intertextual-theoretical approach. Julia Kristeva took a different path. After her cultural-semiotic term “intertextuality” was widely adopted and misappropriated, she replaced it with the different term “transposition”.4 I would like to emphasize, however, what one wins on the basis of the semiotical concept of intertextuality when one takes seriously both components, the spatial “inter” and the theoretical “textuality”. These points can help one see the innovative and productive impulses within the concept. What is it that can be seen better with this term that would otherwise remain hidden and unused? My answer is as follows. When we recognize the decentralizing meaning-generating semiotic concept of intertextuality, we are better able to perceive the dynamics, complexity, and limitations of all the interpretative processes and to recognize the inexhaustible wealth of biblical texts in their intertextual and intermedial relationships.

2. Method

2.1. Interest, Subject and Aim of the Intertextual Study

Matters that are standard for all scientific and academic research cannot be ignored in the case of exegetical studies: one’s interest, the scope of the subject and the aims of the research must be formulated and justified before the research starts. This first step sounds self-evident. Unfortunately, however, it seems that the word “intertextual” has led some scholars to think that simply by using the umbrella term “intertextual study”, everything has been said about interest, subject, aim and method. But this is not the case. To inform the reader about one’s own presuppositions is not only an academic and ethical task with regard to the academic community but also an act of self-reflection and self-enlightenment.

As part of stating one’s interest in intertextuality, one must show how both components of the composite word inter-textuality are being conceptualized. What should come into one’s focus of attention when using the spatial preposition inter? Only when the scholar can formulate his or her interest in this specific spatial preposition, in contrast with another spatial preposition, “in”, can the scholar truly begin a research study that can be characterized as inter-textuality.

Equally, it is absolutely necessary to specify what is meant by the concept of textuality. Without a theory of textuality, one cannot have a theory of intertextuality. This text theoretical reflection is not only necessary for intertextual studies but should also be standard for all exegetical research.

When using a concept of intertextuality, it should also be standard to lay out one’s theological, ethical and political interests. Every use of a specific concept is not only an academic positioning but also an ethical, political, and theological positioning, too. Steve Moyise, one of the most engaged intertextual scholars, offers an exemplary model for this kind of positioning when he presents his own understanding of a dialogical concept of intertextuality: “The idea of dialogical intertextuality is that the alluded text adds a ‘voice‘ to the alluding text, so that the reader is forced to configure multiple ‘voices‘. As the name suggests, it points to openness and mutuality rather than closure and singularity” (Moyise 2016).

In addition to one’s interests, however, it is also important to clarify the real and necessarily restricted subject of the study. If you read, for example, titles like “The Old Testament in the New Testament“, you cannot immediately know whether it is a study on source criticism, on the history of tradition, or an intertextual study, or a confused mix of all of it. One must also clarify exactly which text corpus is in view with the concepts of “old testament” and “new testament”. No reading is able to work with all the different versions of these testaments that exist. It is also not possible to regard every possible relation of all the books of the Old Testament with those of the New Testament. Titles like “the Old Testament in the New Testament” promise more than any human being could possibly deliver. Even if one were to work with the most open postmodern concept of intertextuality, one has to choose to limit what texts are actually going to be discussed. The identification of the real subject of the investigation therefore has to make clear what is really at stake in the study and why the subject is to be limited to the specific texts selected and the specific relations of texts that are being investigated. The limitations of human capacities mean that one has to choose the subject of investigation, and whenever a choice is required, one must take responsibility for that choice.

What is the aim of a given study? Notice: The aim of a study never lies simply in the past, in history, but rather in a contribution to the current discourse, sometimes to change the game, sometimes to support or differentiate present perspectives. But never confound those aims with the results of the research. At the beginning of any study, the aims must be clear but the results must always be open. Going where the evidence takes one is what makes objective research possible, not least in view of the limiting conditions of our individual perspectives.

2.2. Intertextual Dispositions

One of the most crucial points of controversy about intertextuality is the question of the criteria for linking texts together. While the concept of Julia Kristeva sees no limitations and no need for any criteria at all, did the new conceptualization inspire others, for example, Gérard Génette5, to elaborate a localizable and methodizable concept of intertextuality, “which puts the accent on the identifiability of relations between texts” (Tegtmeyer 1997)? In the field of biblical studies, Richard B. Hays introduced “Seven Tests”, which he does not understand as criteria in a strong scientific sense but as “rules of thumb” (Hays 1989) for an intersubjective, plausible intertextual connection of texts. These “criteria” were often used, discussed and criticized.6 I propose not to use the idea of criteria, because this concept limits intertextuality to a production-oriented approach that searches for indices of one text in another text only. A more useful way to establish intertextual connections is Susanne Holthuis’ concept of intertextual dispositions, because it works for all three intertextual perspectives. “The term ’intertextual disposition’ is meant to indicate that certain intertextuality signals are present in the text, which, if recognized as such, can lead the recipient to search for relations to other texts” (Holthuis 1993). This idea is not restricted to production-oriented approaches. Even the most unlimited postmodern perspective has to show why and in what respects it seems to be plausible and productive to read those texts together, which he or she has chosen for his or her intertextual study. Before the work on the “inter” of the chosen texts can start, it is necessary to investigate the chosen texts’ intratextual dispositions.

As a point of method, it is useful to work from an intentional ignorance of intertextual relations. The intratextual starting point is methodologically indispensable because an intertextual reading is not about studying how abstract, free-floating textual entities are related. Rather, such a study is about how the scholar performing the work and producing the study reads the correlated texts. To begin with, at least, an intratextual sketch of one’s own interpretation of every text one has chosen for one’s intertextual subject is the only intersubjective way to account for what is always and only inter-related through one’s own eyes and ears.

The next, still intratextual, step of the investigation is to ask for the text immanent rhetoric of intertextuality in the frame of the universe of discourse of the individual text itself. Take Mark, for example: All scholars know that, in spite of what Mark says, the initial quotation of another text in Mark is not Isaiah but a combination of different voices. In the universe of the discourse of Mark, however, the scholar must notice and interpret this unit of material in 1:2–3 as the voice of Isaiah! In this step of the investigation, it is not yet appropriate to determine what kind of intertextual references one finds in the text. One is not yet ready to say if this is auto- hetero- or even pseudo-intertextuality. The intratextual investigation of intertextual strategies in the text, an investigation that has no regard yet for other texts, is very helpful as a heuristic exploration of marked intertextual dispositions given by the signs of the individual text. Note: As part of this approach, it is necessary not only to consider referential intertextual dispositions but also to consider typological dispositions, too.

The last intratextual step to be taken in preparation for the intertextual study is to read all the involved texts again separately with a view to the questions of gaps in the text and to questions or riddles in the text that the intratextual reading cannot answer. By working with this reading procedure, we are better able to notice a second kind of intertextual disposition motivated by careful intratextual readings of the relevant texts.

Being able to identify intertextual dispositions in the texts by way of careful intratextual observations of those texts proves a very helpful tool for controlling the arbitrariness of the subjective perspectives and limitations of all research.

2.3. Intertextual Mode of Writing, Intertextual Mode of Reception, and Intertextual Performances

Only after performing the formulated tasks should the texts then be analyzed and interpreted intertextually. This requires different methodological procedures for the respective intertextual-theoretical perspectives.

As one pursues the question of the intertextual mode of writing, one moves primarily into the realm of production-oriented intertextuality. At issue here is the generative poetics in play, not the question of the psychology or historical reconstruction of the act of writing by an hypothetically reconstructed author. Moreover, this is not a question of style, or of literary criticism, or of research into the redaction of a text. It has much more to do with an analysis of texture: By what art and manner and with what effects and punchlines were the common and well-known signs selected and organized so that, when read together, the impression of a coherent whole can arise? This concept of the mode of writing, which I have borrowed from Roland Barthes, stresses the aspect of choice in every act of writing, since it is never possible to link everything together. Therefore, because of the economy of language, every act of writing must always be eclectic and positional. Barthes writes, “Now every Form is also a Value, which is why there is room, between a language and a style, for another formal reality: writing. Within any literary form, there is a general choice of tone, of ethos, if you like, and this is precisely where the writer shows himself clearly as an individual because this is where he commits himself. […] A language and a style are blind forces; a mode of writing is an act of historical solidarity” (Barthes 2012). The specific question concerning intertextual modes of writing helps one grasp, correspondingly, how the selection, linking and integration of other texts in the writing process can reasonably function as a structuring element for writing in general. Because no author can integrate every facet of every text known to him or her into his or her own text, the investigation of concrete ways in which the intertextual strategies of texts are carried out becomes an interesting perspective on the act of textual positioning. The same applies for intertextual modes of reading when they are placed in the framework of reception-oriented intertextuality.

Questions about modes of intertextual writing and reading are primarily analytical questions. But reflection on intertextual modes of performance and composing, while complex, is also very important. In religious education, it is common for teachers to show or have students identify the intertextual combination of biblical texts within contemporary literature or other modern texts, such as articles in a newspaper. Such experiments belong to experimental performative intertextuality. If, however, you create that for a lesson, for a sermon or for an article, you should always ask yourself about your intertextual strategy. What shall be your mode of intertextual performance or composition? Do you want to show that the biblical text agrees with or says basically the same thing that other “good” and acceptable contemporary texts say, or do you wish to show that the biblical text has its own voice, one that questions our ways of thinking today?

3. Putting the Theory into Practice

Removing the usual limits of the human body’s ability to move is one of humanity’s wondrous dreams. Unsurprisingly, therefore, floating through the air as lightly as a bird or being able to walk on water (Cf. Collins 2022) are cross-cultural motifs of miracle stories. Both kinds of stories are told about Jesus. Before his crucifixion, three Gospels attribute to him the ability to walk on water. In the Gospel of Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, 1 Thessalonians and the Apocalypse of John, the resurrected Jesus ascends through the air to heaven or comes from there to earth. The fact that these two extraordinary possibilities of locomotion are common not only to the New Testament or biblical texts but also to the ancient discourse on miracles is enough by itself to indicate the extent to which an intertextual disposition can help organize an unmanageable variety of intertextual relations so that they can be examined methodically. The theoretical uncontrollability of multiple possible intertextual relationships can only be overcome in practice by methodically limiting it to a manageable number of correlated texts. This is the only way of not losing oneself in universalizing generalities.

Therefore, I will use the example of Jesus walking on the water to show how productive an intertextual theory and the methodology derived from it can be. I will do this by correlating the story of Jesus with Lucian’s account of the cork-footed men. An intertextual methodology need not rely on a production-orientated claim that Lucian knew one of the Gospels in question or even on a hypothetical miracle source or oral tradition about Jesus walking on the sea. Such literary-historical hypotheses are burdened by numerous historical presuppositions that problematically presuppose what they actually want to show. As such, they are usually far removed from critical-philological and semiotic-textual analysis and interpretation. I will instead work with a reception-orientated approach that is tailored for readers who are familiar with at least one of the New Testament versions of Jesus walking on water and with Lucian’s episode of the cork-footed men. Reception-orientated intertextual work requires only three things: (1) at least two texts; (2) an intertextual disposition on the part of a reader that makes it intersubjectively plausible to read the texts in question together; and (3) a willingness to analyze and interpret the dynamics of this dialogical reading. I see this intertextual disposition as reasonable given the fact that these texts participate in a textual typology that is common to the ancient discourse on miracles and the fact that semantically, both texts present variations of the possibility of walking on water.

A reception-oriented approach in no way precludes other approaches. The results of such a study may well be followed by production-oriented intertextual research. If necessary, diachronic literary-historical hypotheses might be derivable from the textual study conducted as part of the other approaches. However, these other approaches must never be viewed as necessary presuppositions for interpretation. When they are viewed this way, conceptions of history rule over the text rather than the text functioning as the criterion for the respective understanding of history. It should be explicitly mentioned at this point, however, that production-orientated intertextual studies have come to the conclusion that Lucian knew at least some New Testament texts. This applies to at least Revelation (Cf. von Möllendorff 2009), but probably also to the Book of Jonah and some other biblical texts (Cf. Betz 1961). It should also be noted here that in his book The Death of Peregrinus (11), Lucian himself testifies to his knowledge of the existence of Christian books. Nevertheless, my reception-oriented study will not be driven by these facts but by the intertextual question of what happens when the Gospel texts and Lucian are read together in dialogue, a reception-oriented question that is valid whether or not either author was influenced by the other.

Because it is always the interpreters of texts who act and never the texts themselves, which are incapable of acting, it is necessary for an intertextual investigation to begin intratextually in order to outline the exegete’s understanding of the correlated texts, but already with regard to the intertextual interest of the study.

3.1. Jesus Walking on Water in Matthew 14:22–33, Mark 6:45–52, and John 6:15–26

Matthew, Mark and John tell stories that depict Jesus walking on water (Cf. Heil 1981). A reception-oriented intertextual analysis is not concerned about either which of these three Gospels was written first and which last or whether they go back to a hypothetically reconstructed common written or oral source. The more germane and exciting observation is that it was obviously possible to write a story about Jesus without having him walk on water. Luke, who also tells numerous stories about the incarnate Jesus performing miracles, describes the embodied Jesus in such a way that, before his resurrection, he moves exclusively within the boundaries of space and time that apply to all human beings. Only after his resurrection is Jesus able to overcome these boundaries and, like the angel who announces the birth of Jesus, be there one moment and gone the next. After the resurrection, neither the materiality of his own body nor the materiality of earthly buildings or roads are an obstacle to his comings and goings. The first result of an initial comparative examination of the canonical Gospels is therefore that a narrative of Jesus walking on water is not a necessary condition for a sufficient account of Jesus Christ. So, there is one Gospel in which nobody walks on water. There are two Gospels in which one person walks on water, namely Mark and John. There is also one Gospel, namely Matthew, in which two figures in the narrative are able to walk on water. Let us look first at the two Gospels in which only Jesus is able to walk on water.

We begin with the Gospel of John (6:15–26). In John 6:15, Jesus decides to withdraw from the crowds because he does not want to be made king. His disciples, on the other hand, make their own decision to sail across to the other side of the sea at night. As they are sailing, a strong wind arises and causes the sea to become violent. While they are still about 3 miles (25–30 stadia—1 stadium is 600 feet, one foot is about 30 cm) from the shore, they see Jesus walking on the water and are terrified. The narrator of the Gospel says nothing about Jesus’ motivation for walking on the water. He only depicts Jesus responding to his disciples’ fear by saying, “It is I! Do not be afraid!” (6:20b). His disciples, without being asked, desire to bring him into the boat. Suddenly (euthéos), however, they find they have already reached the shore. The inconspicuous adverb euthéos genuinely belongs to the semantics of the New Testament discourse on miracles. Here, it signals a miraculous translocation. The Johannine Jesus is not only able to do with his body what is impossible for humans but he also possesses the miraculous power to move his disciples and their boat from the stormy sea to the safe shore in the blink of an eye. In the context of the entire Gospel of John, this is made plausible by Jesus’ pointed ego eími (“I am”/“It is I”) statements. As the Word of God made flesh, the Johannine Jesus is capable of divine deeds of power like those of God himself.

In the Markan version, Jesus uses his authority to force his disciples to get into the boat and set off without him. He dismisses the crowd and retreats to the mountain to pray. With miraculous vision, he sees while he is still on the mountain that his disciples are struggling because of a strong wind. He decides to go to them on the water and wants to pass them by. They think he is a ghost and cry out in fear. Their fear, which results from the false identification of the one walking on the sea, prompts Jesus to turn to them and encourage them, “Take heart! It is I! Do not be afraid!” (Mark 6:50b). He does not walk past them after all, but of his own accord, he gets into the boat of his disciples. The wind dies down but the incomprehension of his disciples remains. The narrator’s commentary in 6:52 blames their lack of understanding on their hardened hearts, which do not allow them to recognize who Jesus is. Once they reach the shore, however, they all recognize him immediately (euthys, 6:54). This feature of the story only highlights the disciples’ lack of understanding. They know to bring the weak and sick to Jesus, trusting in his miraculous power, which exceeds human capabilities, but they are confused when he walks on water. Attentive readers, however, recognize the hermeneutical function of the narrative. Jesus’ ability to walk on water serves to identify his true identity as Kyrios, Christ and Son of God.

In the Matthean version, Jesus is not the only one who walks on the water. Peter can also do this. Many of the formulations in Matthew’s version are closer to Mark’s account than the Johannine version is. We are not told, however, either that Jesus wanted to walk past his disciples or that their hearts were hardened. On the other hand, Peter doubts Jesus’ encouraging statement, “Take heart! It is I! Do not be afraid!” (Mt 14:27b). He demands proof of a miracle, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to you on the water” (Mt 14:28b). Jesus agrees and orders Peter to come. Peter then manages to walk to Jesus on the water. But when he turns his gaze away from Jesus and looks at the powerful waves instead, he begins to sink and cries out in fear, “Lord! Save me!” Jesus grabs his hand and asks him, “Oh man with so little trust! Why did you fall into doubt?” (14:31b). Peter does not answer. But when they are in the boat together, Jesus’ disciples recognize his divinity. They prostrate themselves before him and confess, “Truly! God’s son are You!” (Mt 14:33b). What is unique about this version of the story of Jesus’ walk on the water is that through pístis, i.e., trust, people other than Jesus can also participate in his miraculous power. Jesus’ miraculous power is not the force that strengthens the surface tension of the water so that people can walk on it. Rather, trust makes it possible for Peter to overcome the limitations of his human body and walk on the water. One could almost conclude here that the point of the Matthean version of this story is to anthropologize the miraculous.

If we read the canonical Gospels together intertextually, an astonishing result emerges. The four versions cannot be harmonized in favor of one unified account. Rather, they offer divergent stories, with Luke and Matthew representing differing extremes. According to Luke, despite his miraculous power, Jesus moves about exclusively in the dimensions of space and time that limit all human bodies, at least prior to his resurrection. According to Matthew, Jesus was able to walk on water due to his possession of divine, miraculous power. But Matthew insists that through trust (pístis), other human beings also have the opportunity to participate in this divine miraculous power. According to Mark, Jesus‘ ability to walk on water functions as a hermeneutical marker of Jesus’ identity as Kyrios and Son of God, something his closest disciples paradoxically and tragically fail to recognize. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus’ divine identity as the Word of God made flesh enables him not only to move about miraculously but also, by his divine power, to translocate other people and things as well. What the three narrators who tell a story of Jesus walking on water agree on, however, is that it was not just a symbolic story, a dream or even a delusion. This miracle, they insist, actually took place in Jesus’ life. Luke’s theology of the body contradicts this point. Yet, he does not contradict the reality of Jesus’ miracles, which Luke depicts Jesus himself performing. Luke certainly envisions the miraculous expansion of Jesus’ physical abilities after his resurrection. Thus, we find in Luke that the resurrected Jesus even has the ability to translocate into heaven.

3.2. Walking on Water: Lucian’s Story of the Corkfeet Men

As a rhetorically and literarily educated intellectual, Lucian knew several stories in which gods walked on water. He knew, for example, of Poseidon’s son Euphemos walking on water (Apollo Rhod I, 179–184) and how Poseidon himself could glide over it in his chariot without even wetting its axles (Hom II, XIII, 26–30). Some ritual texts, which since the 20th century have been lumped together under the problematic umbrella term “magic”, also depict figures flying through the air and/or walking on water. In his polemical work “Philopseudeis, or The Doubter”, Lucian deals with the subject of illusion and deception. He has Cleodemus say, “When I first saw the stranger flying …, I became a believer and changed my mind after much reluctance. For what should I have done when I saw him flying through the air by day, walking on the water and passing through the fire, slowly and step by step?” (Philopseudeis 13). However, this “stranger” is not a god but a human being. Here, walking on water is still something quite extraordinary, but in the context of Lucian‘s argumentation, it only can be understood as a lie intended to deceive.

Another strategy, which can certainly be described as deconstruction avant la lettre, is chosen by Lucian in his Alethé Diegémata (A True Story). Here, the miraculous becomes the ordinary. All the human inhabitants of the Island of Cork can walk on water. This is not because they have miraculous powers. Rather, it is because they all naturally have feet made of cork, which enable them to walk on water. In the following, I quote extensively from Lucian, A True History, 2.4, from A.M. Harmon’s translation in the Loeb Classical Library:

After stopping five days on the island we started out on the sixth, with a bit of breeze propelling us over a rippling sea. On the eighth day, by which time we were no longer sailing through the milk but in briny blue water, we came in sight of many men running over the sea, like us in every way, both in shape and in size, except only their feet, which were of cork: that is why they were called Corkfeet, if I am not mistaken. We were amazed to see that they did not go under, but stayed on the top of the waves and went about fearlessly. Some of them came up and greeted us in the Greek language; they said that they were on their way to Cork, their native city. For some distance they travelled with us, running alongside, and then they turned off and went their way, wishing us luck on our voyage.

In a little while many islands came into sight. Near us, to port, was Cork, where the men were going, a city built on a great round cork. At a distance and more to starboard were five islands, very large and high, from which much fire was blazing up. Dead ahead was one that was flat and low-lying, not less than five hundred furlongs off. When at length we were near it, a wonderful breeze blew about us, sweet and fragrant, like the one that, on the word of the historian Herodotus, breathes perfume from Araby the blest.

Lucian tells the story entirely in the style of an ancient travelogue. He even uses the name of Herodotus, the founding father of Greek historiography, to guarantee its historical accuracy. Intratextually, however, Lucian’s preface includes a kind of reading contract that controls the categorization of the narrative by setting up a tension between truth and lies. Lucian accuses poets such as Homer, historians such as Herodotus, and philosophers such as Plato of improperly treating miracle stories and myths as facts and thus lying to their readers. Lucian does not think that telling such fantastic stories is in itself reprehensible. He objects to such stories being presented as facts rather than being distinguished from reality. In contrast, Lucian gives readers of his True Story the following reading instructions:

I turned my style to publish untruths, but with an honester mind than others have done: for this one thing I confidently pronounce for a truth, that I lie: and this, I hope, may be an excuse for all the rest, when I confess what I am faulty in: for I write of matters which I neither saw nor suffered, nor heard by report from others, which are in no being, nor possible ever to have a beginning. Let no man therefore in any case give any credit to them.

This reading contract not only locates all the subsequent stories in the realm of inventive fantasy but also deconstructs the strategies presented by the narrator that would otherwise support the plausibility of the accounts as deliberate attempts to deceive readers.

Lucian was born in Samosata in Commagene, a province of Syria, around 120 AD. He initially tried to become a stonemason, but on his first day, he destroyed the stone—and was fired! So, he became a Rhetorician instead. He learned Greek so well that he became one of the most accomplished Greek writers in the 2nd century AD. On the basis of his varied interests, literary strategies, and philosophical positions, Lucian criticizes the contemporary Greek discourse on miracles. He not only questions the credulity of his contemporaries but also exposes their sensationalism. Additionally, he deconstructs the discourse on miracles found in the most respected works of poetry, historiography, travelogues, and philosophy. In the above cited preface to his True Story, he declares the “Homeric Odysseus” to be the “founder and teacher” of the most bizarre tales of wonder. Then, at the end of his tale, he arrives at the Isles of the Wicked. There, the most horrible punishments are meted out upon historians such as Herodotus and Ctesias, who should have only reported true stories but instead lied in their historical writings (31). He also criticizes Herodotus, Ctesias, and Homer for lying in another of his works known as “The Lover of Lies or the Doubter” (2). His treatise, “Alexander or the Lying Prophet”, takes a critical look at tricks and illusions as they were practiced not only in literature but also from his experiences in various social contexts. In his “Dialogues of the Gods”, he narrates dialogues between some of the gods and humans but also among the gods themselves. In a way that is both entertaining and philosophical, he addresses the miraculous power of the gods as well as the corresponding contradictions related to this power found in the mythical tales. These dialogues are also full of stories of miracles. However, it would be too one-sided to see Lucian as an enlightened rationalist like Palaephatus. Lucian takes great pleasure in the countless stories of miracles, fantastic beings, and exotic places, which he weaves together, redesigns, and even invents himself. No oeuvre of antiquity contains as many miracle stories as that of Lucian. The philosophical theme that particularly interests him in the discourse on miracles is the question of what can be truthfully said to be possible and impossible in view of the limitations of human cognition. Even if one should not be too hasty in identifying Lucian’s voice with that of Socrates in his dialogue with Chaerephon in Lucian’s short work “Halcyon” or “The Kingfisher or on Transformations (perí metamophóseon)”, Socrates’ words warn us not to understand Lucian too one-sidedly as if he were like a modern Enlightenment philosopher, a rationalist, a sceptic, or even a cynic: “My dear Chaerephon, it seems to me that our judgment of possible and impossible is exceptionally short-sighted, we still form our opinions as best we can as human beings in all our cluelessness, low trustworthiness and blindness”.

3.3. Bringing Lucian and the Gospels into Dialogue

While the three New Testament versions of Jesus walking on water leave no doubt that they are telling a true story, Lucian cautions his readers not to believe that anything he relates is true, including the story of the fearless Corkfeet, who can walk on water. For the intertextual dialogue between the Corkfeet story and the three New Testament versions of Jesus walking on the water, the clash of competing assumptions about reality needs to be noted first. Lucian, who takes great pleasure in telling miracle stories (he tells far more than can be found in the entire Bible), is aware of the popular and widespread discourse on miracles present at every level of society in his day. He appreciates this discourse and knows exactly how to use it in literature. According to Lucian, the acceptance of the miracle discourse is hardly limited only to the uneducated, poorer classes. The kind of strategic defamation of the miracle discourse as a discourse accepted by the uneducated that has been so effective since David Hume would not have been persuasive in Lucian’s time. Rather, Lucian’s stories, especially given his strategy of presenting them as plausible accounts, show that it was the educated elite who thought miracles actually happened. Lucian’s strategies play on the educated classes’ reception of the highly esteemed works of Homer and Herodotus, the most widely read representatives of poetry and historiography.

One of the very first results of an intertextual reading is therefore to realize that the New Testament miracle narratives are anything but exceptional in ancient literature. They are instead a part of the ancient discourse on miracles, a discourse that seeks to locate and measure reality within the lived tension of trying to distinguish between truth and lies. However, while Lucian’s strategy is to challenge the authoritative paradigm of the educational discourse by telling plausible stories that invoke recognized authorities, the Gospels work with the strategy of an omniscient narrator. Lucian speaks as a transparent first-person narrator who informs his readers in the preface that every story this first-person narrator tells is a lie. The omniscient narrators of Mark, Matthew, and John, on the other hand, neither reveal who they are and how they want to be read, nor offer accounts that legitimize what leads them to their all-knowing narrative perspective. Remarkably, the one evangelist who commits himself in his preface to educated, historiographical discourse—Luke—does not tell the story of Jesus walking on water.

Given Lucian’s transparent narrative perspective, we can justifiably ask where the three evangelists get the right to tell stories about things that they themselves have not experienced, and why they do not indicate from whom they have received knowledge of these stories. The intertextual encounter between Lucian and the evangelists brings into focus the importance of narratival perspective. Who is more trustworthy: the first-person narrator Lucian, who says he is lying, or the three anonymous, omniscient narrators of the Gospels?

Another aspect also becomes clear through the intertextual interpretation. The story of Jesus walking on water is by no means as unique as the evangelists make it out to be. Lucian caricatures the motif of walking on water precisely because it is frequent in Greek literature and in ritual, so-called magical, texts. This intertextual interpretation deconstructs claims of exclusivity for the biblical miracle narratives. Clearly, the biblical accounts represent only a small section of a complex and multicultural discourse that fascinated every social class. This discourse posed fundamental questions about the distinction between truth and lies, about the limits of reality, and about the effectiveness of powers that transcend human capabilities. While Mark, John, and Matthew agree that Jesus was able to walk on water because he himself participates in the miraculous power of God, Lucian’s fabricated story about the Corkfeet men explains that they can walk on water because their feet are made of cork, which makes them capable of doing this. It is not divine power but the kind of corporeality that they have that enables them to do what they can do. Because Lucian makes it clear that these feet of cork originate exclusively from his imagination, he implies that the human body is not capable of walking on water. In this way, however, the New Testament versions of a person walking on water are drawn into the maelstrom of Lucian’s “true” tall tales. The fictitious Corkfeet emphasize that the real man Peter, like every human being, cannot walk on water. At the same time, Lucian’s Corkfeet story poses the Gospel stories the Christological question of whether Jesus was a human or a divine being. As a human being, he cannot walk on water. As a god, however, this is no great feat in the context of the Greek discourse on miracles. Other sons of the gods are also said to have done so. When the stories in the Gospels are placed in intertextual dialogue with Lucian, Jesus, who is presented exclusively as the Son of God in the Gospels, loses either his humanity or his exclusivity as God’s Son.

If we add yet another detail of textual observation, a considerable contrast can be drawn between Peter and the Corkfeet men, who are, after all, human beings and not gods. While the Corkfeet fearlessly walk on the sea at will and can even engage in friendly conversation while doing so, Peter quickly falls into fear and sinks into the water. Thus, an additional contrast emerges that allows us to perceive features of the overall moods of the correlated texts. Lucian’s encounter with the Corkfeet is a friendly encounter between different people. The mood is pleasant, almost happy. The wind is favorable. The sea is only slightly choppy. The water has a lovely blue hue. Lucian and his companions marvel at the fearless Corkfeet as they run effortlessly across the water, greet them in a friendly manner, identify themselves as inhabitants of the Island of Cork, and accompany Lucian’s boat for a while before saying goodbye with best wishes for the rest of the journey.

Each version of the New Testament story, on the other hand, is eerie, mysterious, and pervaded by misunderstanding, fear, and doubt. These accounts take place in the darkness of the night. The wind is howling and the waves are stirred up. In Mark and Matthew, Jesus commands his disciples to get into the boat and sail away. In all three versions, Jesus’ disciples are in distress. In Mark, Jesus nevertheless wants to pass by them. In all the versions, the sight of Jesus walking on the sea arouses fear in the disciples. In the Markan and Matthean versions, he is even mistaken for a ghost. In Matthew, Peter doubts that it is Jesus. He demands proof by way of a test. Lucian’s Corkfeet narrative is a peaceful account of a purely human encounter. By contrast, the nocturnal encounter between the terrifying, divine sea-walker, Jesus, and his frightened, misunderstanding, and doubting disciples stuck in a boat being battered by a stormy sea has something threatening about it. An intertextual exploration of Lucian and the Gospels reveals the narratological assumptions that underlie the Gospels‘ accounts. It also highlights the theoretical presuppositions that inform their understanding of reality and construction of realistic narratives. By so doing, such a study challenges the Gospels‘ claims to exclusivity. It also deconstructs them, showing them to be part of the ancient discourse on miracles and revealing the uncanny nature of their depictions of the encounter with divine, miraculous power.

But what happens to Lucian’s text when it is read from the perspective of the Gospels? First of all, all the Gospels will agree with his admission that he is telling nothing but tall tales and does not even want to speak truthfully. But what can the authors of the Gospels say about their own credibility that might counter Lucian? What arguments can they adduce to make their accounts plausible in the context of the ancient discourse on miracles? First of all, they will argue that the story of Jesus Christ told by them is not an idyllic boat trip where people with different physical characteristics meet. Rather, their depictions bring out the terrifying experience of the encounter with divine, miraculous power and the associated risk of misunderstanding that comes along with such an encounter.

Moreover, in light of Lucian’s pleasant and matter-of-fact approach, the seriousness and threatening nature of the story of Jesus as the Christ told by the gospel writers becomes palpable. They tell this story in different versions. Each one has a different way of highlighting the shocking and even threatening nature of encountering the divine power of miracles. The one who has the power to rule over the forces of nature is also the one who has the power to destroy. Whoever becomes aware of the divine power and violence inherent in the miracles that are conceived of and depicted in this way will appreciate all the more some remarkable features about this powerful Jesus. He surprisingly allows himself to be addressed by the fear of his disciples. He does not abandon them and leave them alone with their fear. He speaks to them. He gets into the same boat with them or miraculously transports them immediately to the safety of the shore. And so the Gospels contradict Lucian by refusing to say that they are lying. They simply refuse to play Lucian’s game. They will counter Lucian by saying that no amount of trust in human authority can prove the truth of their stories about Jesus. Only the experience of having been addressed by God and his Messiah can inculcate such trust in their stories. They will argue that no trusted source or reputable historian, philosopher, or poet can prove the truth of their stories. The story itself will lead to trust in God and his Son, Jesus Christ. They will say, Be confident, Lucian, do not be afraid of being addressed by the one who can walk on water. He who has unspeakable power is turned towards you. He will get into the boat with you. Do not confuse him with one of your narrative characters or with a ghost.