...

I want to argue that the complex of traps-snares-stumbling blocks-offenses-scandals, which abide in the Greek word skandalon, is an essential part of the Jewish and Christian Bibles, and that it is essentially, dangerously, and fascinatingly embodied in Gospel narratives. A corollary to my argument is that the skandalon is sufficiently offensive that readers and institutions naturally want to domesticate it to nullify its dangerous power. (p. 5-6) The offense I want to consider here is a distinctively biblical idea; it was developed in the Bible for the sake of its story, its theology, and its readers, none of which can be altogether disentangled from the others. Without it, we miss the biblical representation of the hero and his actions, and we miss the fundamental power of much of the hero's dialogue, including the speech genre always associated with Jesus: parables. (p. 6) ...Jesus himself repeatedly takes the form of an offense, a stumbling block. And his offensiveness is reciprocated: in the end, those who are offended crucify him. After the death, the cross itself becomes the scandal: Paul refers to "the offense of the cross," an offense that he does not want to be "removed" (Gal. 5:11). But whether it comes from Jesus or the cross or elsewhere, the challenge to the individual's most fundamental and cherished beliefs is at the heart of the New Testament skandalon.1 (p. 7)
A scandal may titillate or outrage us; either way, the titillation or moral indignation effectively prevents any challenge of the sort that offense brings to the assumptions and truths we hold most dear and the idols we cherish most deeply. Offense violates our assumptions

about what our world is or what we think it ought to be. Whatever is unofficial, unestablished, non-normal, deviant, or nonstandard, in our view, carries with it the possibility of offense. (p. 7) Whenever skandalon appears in the Greek text, it is translated in the RSV as "cause for stumbling," "cause of sin," "difficulty," "hindrance," "hindrance in the way," "make fall," "pitfall," "stumbling block," "temptation," or "temptation to sin." With these varied translations, is it any wonder that we fail to recognize a common idea repeatedly surfacing in the New Testament? The verb skandalizo has fewer, but still varied, translations in the RSV: "cause of falling," "cause to fall," "cause to sin," "fall away," "give offense," "make fall," "offend," and "take offense." There is no form of "stumble" or of "scandal" here, but, in fewer than one-quarter of the appearances, there is some form of "offense." (p. 8) Rene Girard uses the idea in conjunction with his theory of "mimetic desire"essentially the idea that we humans desire not some object as such but whatever is already desired by a rival or model. We desire only what is given value by another. Girard has applied his theory not only to literature (especially Dostoyevski, Stendhal, Proust, and Shakespeare) but also to Introduction: The Offense and Us 9 anthropology, psychology, and theologychallenging the anthropologists with a new theory of the origin of violence (in Violence and the Sacred), psychologists with non-Freudian notions of desire (in Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World), and biblical scholars with desacralizing interpretations (in The Scapegoat and Job: The Victim of His People). The idea of the skandalon is crucial to Girard's larger argument about violence. The skandalon is the obstacle that one is obsessed by, or, as he says, the "obstacle-model of mimetic rivalry" (Things Hidden, 416), which in fact is not usually real at all but a metaphysical illusion created by the mechanism of desire, imitation, and rivalry. In the Hebrew Bible, the quintessential scandal is idolatry (421); in the New Testament, it is the "other as an object of metaphysical fascination" (425). In both cases, and throughout history, the underlying principle of this obsession is violence, the principle of dominating and being dominated. This mechanism of violence, in Girard's view, is exposed by the New Testament, which teaches that rivalry and violence can be suppressed only through childlike imitation (as opposed to mimetic rivalry) in the biblical logic of love. (p. 8-9)
Whatever the origin of their interest in scandal, it is certain that Kierkegaard is the preeminent modem philosopher of the skandalon or (in the Princeton translations of Kierkegaard's works) the "offense." In The Sickness unto Death (1849), Anti-Climacus calls the

offense "Christianity's crucial criterion" and "an eternal, essential component of Christianity." In both his signed and his pseudonymous writings, Kierkegaard emphasizes its importance in order to show the folly of Christians' ignoring "Christ's own instructions, 10 The Offense which frequently and so concernedly caution against offense; that is, he [Christ] personally points out that the possibility of offense is there and must be there" (83-84). (p. 9-10) There is clearly a relation between the Derridean scandal and the biblical skandalon: both violate norms, and both are stumbling blocks. But Derrida's scandal is finally nonexistent; once the erroneous distinctions are abolished, the scandal "can no longer be said to be a scandalous fact." (And, likewise, though for entirely different reasons, the skandalon for Girard is ultimately an "illusion.") Scandal is, in Derrida's view, a useful deconstructive tool that deconstructs the accepted truths of old concepts and then deconstructs itself. The biblical skandalon, on the other hand, is not a tool but an action. It does not deconstruct old concepts; it hardens them. Or, alternatively, it reveals truth, although not truth as a philosophical concept or doctrine. In its biblical form, the skandalon is encountered by individuals on the way to idolatry or to truth. (p. 11)

Mindful both of Bloom's and Kierkegaard's scandal of normative misreading and their lament over the suppressed offense, I am attempting here to reintroduce Bible readers to the biblical skandalon, to illuminate the workings of Gospel narratives as actions grounded in offense, and, more specifically, to explore parables as actions presented by their offensive interlocutor, Jesus. My interest is not simply in how the offense operates in the narrative but also in how we as readers and interpreters conveniently eliminate its dangerous and fascinating qualities. Avoiding offense is a deep need, even (perhaps especially) when it appears in sacred texts. (p. 13) ... There is no mistaking the astonishing insultyou are a Canaanite dogand it is clear that the woman does not mistake it: "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table" (15:27). More astonishing than the insult is the woman's response; she, unlike the Pharisees, affirms the insult ("Yes, Lord"), choosing not to be offended. She has acknowledged his lordship and his Jewishness from the outset ("Lord, Son of David"). Even in the face of an insult that would normally send one away from the giver of the insult, enraged or in despair, she continues to acknowledge his lordship and therefore is willing to accept the role of dog. She, like the dogs, will willingly take the crumbs, for these crumbs, she believes, are life-giving bread from the Lord, and they will heal her daughter. Jesus's response"Woman, great is your faith!"is in direct contrast to his response to Peter in the preceding chapter, when Peter began

to sink in the water ("You of little faith, why did you doubt?" Matt. 14:31) and to all the disciples in the following chapter when they forget Jesus's use of bread and teaching about bread ("You of little faith. . . . Do you still not perceive?" Matt. 16:8-9). The Pharisees are offended; the Canaanite woman is not offended. The stark contrast is revelatory, for the opposite of offense is faith, but the only way to faith is through the possibility of offense. (18-19) In spite of this explicit statement about the blessedness of not taking offense, and in spite of repeated offenses and potential offenses issuing from the mouth of Jesus, many readers of the Gospels do not want to recognize the possibility of offense that Jesus embodies. Indeed, this passage, which appears also in Mark with some variations, is itself so offensive that some commentators have decided that it is a textual corruption because it is offensive. (p. 19)