Re-framing End-Time Wonders: A Response to Hans Kvalbein

In 1998 JSP published Hans Kvalbein’s analysis of 4Q521’s therapeutic language, in which Kvalbein pursued specifically (1) the question whether such language intends a literal or metaphorical referent, and (2) the parallels between 4Q521’s language and Mt. 11.5||Lk. 7.22. Kvalbein’s essay presents a careful analysis of the relation between tradition and the language used to express that tradition. Unfortunately, his essay assumes a too-rigid distinction between literal and metaphoric reference and neglects the complex relations that could obtain between language and tradition, past and present. This essay addresses that neglect and turns to recent sociological research in memory to uncover 4Q521’s and the gospel texts’ use of therapeutic traditions in Isaiah (and elsewhere) to identify and interpret their present situation(s).