“I’m Going to Ask You a Very Strange Question”: A Conversation Analytic Case Study of the Miracle Technique in Solution-Based Therapy

© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This article reports on a conversation analytic case study of the miracle technique as it is used in a solution focused therapeutic interview. It shows and describes the interactional structures and practices that are used to deliver the theoretical principles of the approach. An announcement by the therapist that a strange question would be asked marked the launch of the technique. Following the question announcement the therapist used a miracle story to provide the client with requisite background knowledge to answer the question. The question asked the client how she would be able to tell her problem had been miraculously solved. The therapist was able to progress the interview in therapeutically relevant ways by using repeats and modified repeats of the client’s responses to progress the interview. This study contributes to a better understanding of how the miracle technique is actually accomplished providing a sound empirical basis for future research and training using the approach.

“I’m Going to Ask You a Very Strange Question”: A Conversation Analytic Case Study of the Miracle Technique in Solution-Based Therapy

© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This article reports on a conversation analytic case study of the miracle technique as it is used in a solution focused therapeutic interview. It shows and describes the interactional structures and practices that are used to deliver the theoretical principles of the approach. An announcement by the therapist that a strange question would be asked marked the launch of the technique. Following the question announcement the therapist used a miracle story to provide the client with requisite background knowledge to answer the question. The question asked the client how she would be able to tell her problem had been miraculously solved. The therapist was able to progress the interview in therapeutically relevant ways by using repeats and modified repeats of the client’s responses to progress the interview. This study contributes to a better understanding of how the miracle technique is actually accomplished providing a sound empirical basis for future research and training using the approach.

Hagiographies of Mary

This chapter examines a new form of literature that emerged in twelfth-century England, the collections of Marian miracle stories, designed to prove through reasoned argument that Mary was worthy of devotion. Marian miracle collections first appeared in English monasteries in the early twelfth century, depicting the imagined rewards of entreating Mary to act on their behalf. The Marian genre was a further expression of the drive to record letters, laws, histories, and hagiographies that pervaded Anglo-Norman monastic culture. In order to understand the part the miracle story played in the development of the Marian cult, the chapter traces its inception and early development within wider literary and devotional patterns. It also considers the prayers, chants, offices, and feast days that lie at the heart of the universal miracle collections before concluding with a discussion of how the miracle stories were communicated in the liturgy.

Enemies of Mary

This chapter examines the prominence of Jews in Marian miracle stories. In order to exemplify the right approach to praising and celebrating Mary, the miracle story often made use of the trope of the “bad guy”—commonly depicted as Jewish—against which the good devotee is contrasted. The Jewish characters in miracle collections generally carry out the opposite of what appropriate devotion should look like: desecration instead of veneration, doubt instead of belief, violence instead of mercy. After tracing the origins of the juxtaposition between Mary and the Jews in narrative, the chapter considers a number of stories that portrayed the Jew as an antagonist against whom to exercise Mary's mercy and justice, including the tale of Theophilus and the stories of the Jewish boy, the image of Mary at Lydda, the Virgin's Image Insulted, the Jews of Toledo, Theodore and Abraham, and the Jews of Toulouse.

Conclusion

This book has explored how miracles, liturgy, and theology all combined in the Marian cult to give Mary unprecedented significance while emphasizing the opposition of the Jews. As much as she was shaped as the mother of mercy and queen of heaven, Mary was understood to be the bane of the Jews, tirelessly seeking their conversion and punishment. In the former role, Mary was the source of salvation. Jews became useful witnesses to her soteriological powers, demonstrating that even her most obstinate enemies could be overcome in the end. As a result, Mary emerged all the more powerful from her battle with the unbelieving Jews. Because Jews were part of the Marian miracle story in Christian theology and narrative, the growth of her cult drew Jews into the limelight. This concluding chapter considers the implications of the tendency to see Jews as willfully violent toward Mary and her followers.

Byzantine Art and Gospel Commentary: The Case of Luke 13:6–9, 10–17

This paper represents a conversation between two disciplines that too rarely enter into dialogue: New Testament studies and the history of Byzantine art. Two gospel passages have been chosen for analysis here: the first is a parable, the parable of the fig tree (Luke 13:6–9); the second, which follows immediately upon the first, is a miracle story that provokes a controversy (Luke 13:10–17). Both passages appear exclusively in the Gospel of Luke. Our joint study will start with exegetical notes on the Gospel of Luke and the history of the interpretation of these particular verses and will then turn to the miniatures that illustrate them in an eleventh-century Byzantine manuscript in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Parisinus graecus 74 (figs. 1–2). François Bovon has interpreted the Gospel of Luke in a German collection, the Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, a series attentive to the history of the reception (Wirkungsgeschichte) of the biblical text in the life of the Christian church. He will explain the two New Testament passages and follow the path of patristic and Byzantine interpretation during these periods.

Resetting the academic discourse on New Testament miracle traditions

O discurso exegético sobre os milagres do Novo Testament no século passado foi dominado pelos estudiosos ocidentais que não criam em milagres e que denunciaram esta crença como expressão de uma compreensão primtiva do mundo. Este discuros continua nas sendas exegéticas e hermenêuticas estabelecidas pelos estudiosos desde Rudolf Bultmann a GerdTheißen. O conceito que subjaz a publicação recente do Kompendium der frühchristlichen Wundererzählungen é um exemplo. Aqui, uma compreensão moderna da realidade é sobreposta nas narrativas do Novo Testamento. Mas o que é preciso é uma avaliação das tradições de milagres do Novo Testamento “a partir” de seus conceitos de realidade. Este artigo é dedicado ao desenvolvimento de uma aproximação êmica às tradições de milagre do Novo Testamento, assumindo seriamente os fundamentos dos conceitos de realidade do Mediterrâneo Antigo. O foco desta investigação são os milagres que pertencem à restauração da saúde ou da vida. As categorias a muito tidas como definitivas como “miracle story” e “miracle worker” são desconstruídas em seu desenvolvimento. The exegetical discourse on New Testament miracles in the past century has largely been dominated by scholars of the West who do not believe in miracles and who have been quick in denouncing such a belief as an expression of a primitive understanding of the world. The exegetical discourse of the West on miracles in the New Testament is still widely continuing on the exegetical and hermeneutical pathways set out by scholars from Rudolf Bultmann to GerdTheißen. The concept underlying the recent publication of the Kompendium der frühchristlichen Wundererzählungen is a case in point. Here a modern understanding of reality is superimposed onto the New Testament narratives. What is needed instead, however, is an assessment of New Testament miracle traditions strictly “within their concepts of reality”. This present contribution is dedicated to developing an emic approach to New Testament miracle traditions, taking seriously essentials of ancient Mediterranean concepts of reality. It focuses the investigation on miracles pertaining to a restoration of health or life. Categories long taken for granted such as “miracle story” and “miracle worker” are deconstructed in the course of this presentation.