Just one X-Wing? Ancient Memes and Cultural Reference Language.

I recently finished "Reading Backwards" by Richard B. Hays, and it has had a profound impact on the way I perceive the literary structure and original intent of the authors of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). I mentioned in my post "What Does It Mean To Study The Bible?" the areas that should be explored to help understand what is going on, and this book does such a great job at that! It is relatively theologically technical (as it was written based on academic lectures), but with a dictionary and Wikipedia loaded onto my Kindle app I was able to figure out what was going on most of the time.

The focus of the book is each of the Gospel's authors' use of Israel’s scriptures to interpret the witness of Jesus's significance and role in God's story. It explores their Christological imagery based on cultural cues and syntax that would've resounded with those who were familiar with the Old Testament, and the impact that would've had on them.

This style of Bible study is known as "intertextual reading". It involves a careful balance of good hermeneutical investigation of how an author uses a previous text to get their point across, while also illuminating a deeper meaning in the original text that doesn't impose an unintended meaning.

It is the first time I've heard of a literary device called "metalepsis" - when a phrase or figure of speech is used to evoke a known theme or story to an audience. The Bible authors use this style of writing to bring the understanding of Jesus to a higher level of comprehension based on their existing knowledge of God in Israel's scriptures. The tricky part is that only those who are familiar with the origin of the metaphor will appreciate the full weight of the statement.

This usage of coded language that utilises key phrases and themes to bring to your attention a deeper meaning is used all the time in today's online and pop culture. A meme is a very similar communication device that does this - it uses elements of culture or systemised behaviour to transmit a new message (often a joke).

This is a huge part of modern storytelling.

When Tony Stark says the words "I am Iron Man" as he sacrifices himself in Avengers Endgame, it has a deep connection to the ending of the first Iron Man movie when he identifies himself as the superhero.

If I say the words "let's see how deep the rabbit hole goes", there is a cultural reference to Alice and Wonderland and The Matrix the infers a greater depth to what I'm talking about.

A very recent and favourite example of this is from the latest season of Disney's Star Wars show - The Mandalorian.

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE MANDALORIAN

Ok, let me geek out for a moment here.

Season 2 has the protagonist of the show (simply named "Mando") being tasked to unite his bounty target-turned-adopted son (simply named "The Child") to a Jedi. The Star Wars fans went into meltdown trying to theorise who this Jedi could be, exploring the timeline of the canon and tracing any possible clue throughout the show with who the Jedi could be.

The final episode of season 2 has a climactic moment with Mando successfully completing this mission, but the directors of the show did it in a spectacular way that exemplifies usages of metalepsis and great storytelling.

The lead-up to the finale has Mando and his team have rescuing The Child from the antagonist, and are locked away in a room while being attacked by a group of very dangerous Dark Trooper droids. All seems lost!

But suddenly one of Mando's team notices a spaceship coming to the rescue. And not just any spaceship, but a lone X-Wing. In response to this update, another member of the team Cara Dune scrupulously says "One X-Wing? Great, we're saved."

To a newer viewer of Star Wars, they would've resounded in agreeance with Cara Dune. We've seen groups X-Wing's in previous episodes of the show and they're nothing too spectacular.

But to an avid fan of Star Wars, a lone X-Wing was synonymous with a very significant character, a Jedi who would be the perfect master for The Child to be united with.

But there wasn't a full confirmation of who this character could be just yet.

The next scenes of pitch-perfect nostalgia had a lone, hooded figure emerging from the X-Wing and swiftly destroying the Dark Trooper droids that Mando's entire crew struggled to battle just moments earlier. Throughout this sequence, various clues are given that further confirmed the identity of the hooded figure - defined combat stances, a green lightsaber, a single black glove on the right hand!

Once this mysterious yet Jedi had defeated the remaining droids and Mando let him into the room, he lifts away his hood and we finally see that the Jedi is none other than Luke Skywalker!

But this isn't like the Luke Skywalker we've seen in the movies, this is the Jedi Master in his prime with incredible power and balance to take on waves of enemies single-handedly!

There are compilations on Youtube of grown men crying during this sequence (admittedly I may have had the same response). From the moment they hear of one X-Wing coming to the rescue, they go into shock as they realise they are about to see their childhood hero in an incredible way that has never been depicted on screen before.

The reason behind the emotional response to this moment is that this was a version of Luke Skywalker that Star Wars fans had fantasized about for decades, the Jedi in his prime that the original trilogy only hinted that he would become. The most recent "prequel trilogy" portrayed a much older Luke Skywalker, but failed dismally capturing the essence of the greatest character in the saga.

The directors of The Mandalorian did an amazing job and planting specific imagery that was not only a fan service but a great storytelling device that I'm sure many other shows will attempt to follow.

What does any of this have to do with the Gospel's and their authors' usage of the Old Testament scriptures?

The writers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John knew Israel's holy texts so well that they were able to take specific phrases, themes and ideas that other Jews would've known, and utilise them in a way that communicated the status of Jesus as the Son of God.

To those who weren't as intuitively familiar with those scriptures (like many of us today), we can miss the true depth of those writings. But to the original Jewish readers of the Gospels, the cultural references in the four Gospels would have lightened up like a red lightsaber in a dark hallway as they realised what the authors were doing with these hints and clues.

Richard Hay's describes it like this:

Because the Evangelists are so deeply immersed in Israel’s Scripture, their references and allusions to it are characteristically metaleptic in character: that is, they nudge the discerning reader to recognize and recover the context from which the intertextual references are drawn. In many, many instances, a consideration of the fuller original context will shed light on the story the Evangelists are telling and add important nuance to an otherwise flat surface reading. Hays, Richard B.. Reading Backwards (p. 107). Baylor University Press. Kindle Edition.

His final proposal in the book is the that more you familiarise yourself with the Jewish and Old Testament narrative, the more you can see how each of the four Gospel's authors identified Jesus as the embodiment of the God of Israel in their own and unique way.

Traditionally each of the authors has been labelled as having a "low" or "high" level of Christology based on the number of references throughout their book and the perceived comprehension of the significance of Jesus. But Richard Hay's suggested we should abandon this and instead understand that each of the Gospels offers a distinct voice in a polyphonic chorus that should be appreciated in unison adding to a greater narrative.

So how does this help?

If you believe that the Bible is divinely inspired, then this will further your understanding of God's story. But seeing how the authors of the Bible utilised their own scriptures to define the authority and role of Jesus, they were able to grow the church as we know it today.

And I believe that the more you really know God's story and can articulate it, the more you'll understand your role and the part you play - and how to invite others to be a part of that story.

As Richard Hay's puts it:

"...if we are able to follow the Evangelists’ guidance on how to read, we will gain crucial resources for renarrating the story of Jesus in an age when once again we must articulate the gospel in a fragmented world urgently seeking signs of hope." Hays, Richard B.. Reading Backwards (p. 110). Baylor University Press. Kindle Edition.

If we can comprehend the depth and intertextuality of the Bible, and see how God's breath is intertwined throughout it, we'll understand it and meditate on it a lot more. The more you know the layout of your roadmap, the easier it gets to navigate around it and help guide others. The more you know your Bible, the easier it gets to navigate its complexities and help others understand it.

For me, this has further inspired me to keep reading and rereading the whole Bible. And meditate on how incredibly well it has been crafted. Just like exploring the roads of my city will help me understand how to navigate it without the aid of tools or other people, exploring my Bible will help me appreciate the greater story being told and what I should be doing for my role in it.