"The Thoughts of Many Hearts Shall Be Revealed": Listening in on Lukan Interior Monologues

A constant refrain in contemporary NT studies is that ancient people were "anti-introspective." I contend that this view has caused us to overlook a significant aspect of the early Christian witness, namely, the importance of what one says to one's soul. Several times in Luke's Gospel, characters' thoughts are revealed through the literary device of interior monologue, yet these inner speeches remain underexplored. In this article, I begin by describing the view that ancient societies eschewed interiority; the subsequent section discusses interior speech in Hellenistic and ancient Jewish literature. I then read six Lukan interior monologues from the parables in light of these comparanda. As in ancient Hellenistic narratives, Luke's interior monologues depict the thinker's inner turmoil in a crisis moment; they also provide narrative articulations of Jewish warnings against foolish self-talk. Rhetorically, the interior monologues in the first four parables foster readerly identification with the thinker; readers who accept this invitation will experience the corrections implied by the narrative rhetoric. In the latter two parables, however, narratorial guidance indicates that the audience is not meant to identify with the thinking characters. In these cases, inner speech introduces dramatic irony, privileging the reader over the thinker. Overall, I aim to show that Luke's interior monologues challenge the dominant paradigm of the "anti-introspective" Mediterranean self. Our focus should be on the kinds, degrees, and functions of interiority and introspection in ancient texts, rather than on a generic portrait of ancient societies as "anti-introspective."(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)In an article titled, "The Soul's Comeback: Immortality and Resurrection in Early Christianity" (2010), Francois Bovon pushes back against a current trend in studies of early Christianity: the tendency to emphasize the external, corporeal aspect of the ancient self-the "body" (...)-at the expense of the inner, immaterial dimension of the ancient self-the "soul" (...).1 Bovon implores scholars to avoid letting the pendulum swing too far to either side of the psyche/soma divide, lest we miss a crucial component of the early Christian witness.2 The scope of this article is more modest than Bovon's,3 but it similarly pushes back against a current consensus in which the scholarly pendulum has again swung too far toward an unhelpful extreme: in this case, not between the poles of "soul" and "body" but between the poles of so-called introspective individualistic societies and antiintrospective collectivistic societies.4A constant refrain in contemporary NT studies is that ancient people lacked a concept of the interior life; they were "anti-introspective."5 I contend that this view has caused us to overlook a significant aspect of the early Christian witness, namely, the importance of what one says to one's soul or in one's heart.6 The Third Gospel in particular demonstrates interest in an individual's inner life, in four respects:1. In the importance of "paying attention" (...) to "how" (...) one "hears" (...) God's word (8:18).7 For Luke, this "'hearing' is ... an inner, consensual attitude."82. In Jesus' attention to what is on the "inside" (..., 11:40). Contrary to Bruce Malina's assertion that "what counted [in ancient society] was what went on the outside of a person,"9 Jesus teaches that those who focus on the outside alone are "fools" (..., 11:39-40),10 and that good and evil come from the heart (..., 6:45).3. In the fulfillment of Simeon's early prophecy that, as a result of Jesus, "the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed" ( ..., 2:35). Due to the "primacy effect," Luke's implied reader11 is prompted to expect the "thoughts" of people's "hearts" to play a role in the ensuing narrative.124. Ιn the emphasis on aligning what one says internally with the divine perspective (as expressed by the Lukan narrator). …