Nature and Purpose of Parables
What is a 'parable'?
In the Greek, 'parabole' means 'to put something alongside something else'. A comparison, or analogy. But in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Jewish Bible), the word 'parabole' is used to translate the Hebrew word masal, and this word is used of many different types of literature.
The different types of teaching literature in the OT need to be borne in mind when you are considering how parables should be interpreted. There have been several methods employed by the Christian church over the past 2,000 years.
1. The allegorical method employed by Origen, St Augustine etc. With this method, everything in the story stands for something else. The interpretation of the Good Samaritan by this method is a good example. As far as St Augustine was concerned everything from the Priest, to the oil and wine to the saddle on the little donkey's back stood for something else!
The trouble with this method is that it was often employed to relate the parable to a situation contemporary to the allegoriser, which resulted in the obvious meaning being lost. Thus the Good Samaritan became, for Augustine, an allegory about the salvation of the world, and the message of Jesus, exhorting people to costly, dangerous generosity, condemning racism, and identifying one's neighbour with anyone in need, whatever, their race, colour or creed was lost. To the huge detriment of the Christian Church, this so often seems to have ignored these common sense applications of Jesus’ teaching.
2. Luther and Calvin rejected this allegorical method of interpreting parables and their lead was taken up by
3. Adolf Julicher (1899) who also rejected the allegorical method of interpreting parables, insisting instead that the way to interpret the parables was to look for the key teaching point in each one. Thus, the Good Samaritan becomes an illustration of one's neighbour being anyone in need.
This is all very well as far as it goes but clearly some of the extended narrative parables make more than one point. The Rich Man and Lazarus, for example, or the Prodigal Son.
4. C H Dodd, in his book 'The Parables of the Kingdom' (1935), argued that the main purpose of the parables was to teach about the arrival of the
The problem with Dodd's outlook is that he tends to overlook (a) parables that are not obviously about the Kingdom of God, and (b) those parables, like 'The Sheep and the Goats' that do not fit into the pattern of realised eschatology that he carefully constructs. This means that the overall conclusions he arrives at in respect of the teachings of Jesus are inevitably unbalanced.
5. Joachim Jeremias, brought to the study of parables ('The Parables of Jesus' (1947) ) an unrivalled knowledge of 1st Century
Synoptic Gospel Outlines
Narrative Segment Matthew Mark Luke
Jesus Uses Parables 12:46 - 13:52 3:31 - 4:34 8:1-21
THE PARABOLIC TEACHINGS IN THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
For the past hundred years, investigation of the parabolic teachings (Gleichnisreden) has been connected with the two-volume work of Adolf Julicher. In part two of his work Julicher deals consecutively with comparisons (Gleichnisse) in the narrow sense, the parables (Parabeln), and the four example stories (Beispielerzählungen), found only in Luke, which, as their name indicates, do not portray the intended subject matter in a comparative way, but exemplify and directly summon a corresponding response, or imitation. With comparisons in the narrow sense the narrator refers to a generally understandable incident in everyday life and would like the hearer to transfer his or her spontaneous assent to this incident to the spiritual-religious circumstances expressed by the pictorial comparison. Parables, on the contrary, relate an individual incident, a unique event, and by means of its narrative peculiarity directs the hearer's attention to the subject matter portrayed in the vividness of the story. In Julicher’s opinion, all three types of parabolic stories always intend to depict, or exemplify, a single idea, for which reason an allegorical interpretation, that equates the individual pictures and concepts of the parabolic story, one by one, with particular ideas and circumstances, does not do justice to the original meaning of parabolic teachings. Given these presuppositions, Julicher was convinced that "the parabolic teachings of the Gospels go back to the historical Jesus," because "such an original and dignified way of speaking can only be skilfully used by a genius, but not employed like something commonplace by his biographer."
THE MESSAGE OF THE PARABOLIC TEACHINGS OF JESUS:
This judgement constitutes the conclusion of the chapter "The Authenticity of the Parabolic Teachings of Jesus," with which Julicher opens his two-volume work, and it remains the presupposition largely taken for granted by scholars who have interpreted the parabolic material since Julicher, even if in other respects they more or less critically dispute with him and derive a different message from the parabolic stories than Julicher did. In the parabolic stories Julicher found expressed the great abundance of that universal religious and moral truth that generally determined the life-of-Jesus theology of his time. Fiebig's view, for example, was similar, although he was by no means willing to separate all allegorical elements from the parables of Jesus: "Through their delightful originality and vividness, but above all through the great, universal human subject matter which they serve... they bear in themselves surety that no one could have created them but Jesus alone."
For Charles H. Dodd as well, the parabolic teachings of Jesus bear "the stamp of a highly individual mind, indeed, a mind who understands his work as the realization of the eternal
METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN THE INTERPRETATION OF PARABLES
This is the fact that that the interpretation of parables throughout the history of research seems to follow prior judgments regarding the proclamation of Jesus rather than specific exegetical findings grounded in the methodological difficulty that the original parabolic teachings of Jesus must be reconstructed from exclusively literary traditions of the post-apostolic age? This difficulty is clearly evident, as is shown in an exemplary way by the fact that even Julicher's fundamental criterion, the exclusion of allegorical elements from the parabolic teaching of Jesus, is no longer taken for granted. The question soon arose as to why Jesus, who apparently so fully understood how to make use of different forms of pictorial speech, should not also have made use of allegorical methods, and the interpretation of parables oriented the concept of metaphor regarded the "distinction of allegory and parable" as altogether "inappropriate."
Form-critical interpretation was nevertheless convinced that the gospel materials deposited in tradition, which can be perceived on the literary level, could be rendered into the material of an oral tradition prior to this level, the existence of which one was increasingly convinced in the last half the preceding century, and that in such a way the original constituents of the gospel materials could be ascertained with sufficient certainty. Ever since Julicher, the investigation of parables has also proceeded in this methodological way - to be sure, without the optimism of form-critical interpretation having been confirmed - with a relatively certain scholarly consensus that the origin of the synoptic tradition is perceptible somewhere behind a phase of oral mediation.
PARABOLIC TEACHINGS IN LUKE'S SPECIAL MATERIAL
Luke's special material includes, first of all, the four example stories: the good Samaritan (Lk 10:30-35), which sets forth love of neighbour in an exemplary way; the wealthy farmer (Lk 12:16-20), which cautions against trust in earthly possessions; the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19-31), which reflects a corresponding idea in a wider context; and the Pharisee and the tax collector (Lk 18:10-14), which places humility against self-righteousness. These example stories belong to a Gattung of their own, which indeed resembles parable stories in character, except that "any figurative element is entirely absent," and metaphorical language is also foreign. It is highly improbable that these example stories came down to Luke in a stream of oral tradition of the teaching of Jesus without previously making themselves known through a trace of any kind. Nor do they show any sign of having been passed on in Christian circles for three generations. On the contrary, they are thoroughly and deeply rooted in Jewish-Hellenistic tradition. The story of the good Samaritan disavows priests and Levites, the representatives of religious leaders in Jerusalem, and over against them raises up the Samaritan, despised by orthodox Jews, as an example of compassion - the reflection of a liberal synagogue, that stands distant from the Temple cult, sees all commandments to be fulfilled in the command to love one's neighbour, and even includes devout Gentiles in their fellowship, who, if they fulfil the commandment of love, are better members of the Jewish community. The story of the wealthy farmer contains a piece of wisdom widely circulated in Judaism (cf. Psalm 39:7; 49:7-21) and retold in Sirach 11:18-19. The essential motifs in the story of the rich man and poor Lazarus are also found in old Egyptian stories and in Jewish legends; Moses and the prophets are the full and sufficient religious authorities; Lazarus bears the Hellenized Eleasar ("God helps") as a name and sits in the lap of Abraham, who is a father of many nations (Gen 17:5); the conception of afterlife is that of Hellenistic Judaism. Finally, the beautiful example story of the Pharisee and the tax collector juxtaposes two Jewish types, but shows no sign of any debate between Jesus, or the Christian community, and the Pharisees; and that the
In chapter 15 Luke presents three parables, two of which belong to his special material, and all of which make the same statement. The parable of the lost sheep, on which they are based, derives from the Sayings Source. Luke, however, already shifts the traditional focus of this parable from the motif of seeking to that of finding again and the joy over what was found; and these ideas find expression as well in the two parables from Luke's special source, concerning the lost coin and concerning the lost son, who returns without being sought for at all. Moreover, with regard to the ninety-nine sheep it is expressly noted that they resemble the righteous who do not need to return, or, as the case may be, need to repent, and this corresponds to the older brother in the parable of the lost son, who remained with the father the entire time. These Lukan specifics clearly reflect the meaning of the three parables in the context of Luke's Gospel and the situation of his community. As has often been observed, Luke writes in remembrance of an intense persecution of Christians that led to sizable defection. After the persecution eased, the problem arose as to whether the defectors, if they returned to the community in repentance, should be accepted again. The older brother represents those faithful members of the community, who oppose a "second repentance" by the apostates. With all three parables, however, Luke makes it clear that the community should again accept those who repent, because God accepts them again; for "in heaven" there is more joy over one sinner who returns than over many who remain faithful, who remained in their father's house and do not need to return. This idea is obviously especially important for Luke, when he gives it vivid expression three times. And because the corresponding problem fully reflects the acute situation in which the Gospel of Luke was written, the incontrovertible assumption is that Luke not only reworked the traditional parable of the lost sheep in a consistent way, but also that the doublet of the lost coin and the impressive story of the two sons, both of which are original creations and show no signs of any reworking, were composed by Luke himself.
Another triad of parabolic teachings is found in the parables of the begging friend (Lk 11:5-8), the begging son (Lk 11:11-12), and the begging widow (Lk 18:2-5). The parable of the begging son is found also in Mt 7:9-10, and consequently was taken over by Luke from the Sayings Source. The two parallel parables belonged to Luke's special material, and may have been related by Luke himself in accordance with the begging son story. All three parables express the certainty that unceasing prayer is heard. The tripling of the original parable shows how important this idea also is for Luke; and such importance is again grounded in the concrete situation of the community threatened by persecution in Luke's own time. Regardless of how the original parable is understood, Luke relates all three parables to the situation of his community. The parable of the begging son concerns the prayer for the Holy Spirit (Lk 11:13), who will provide the appropriate word for the confessor before the tribunal of the persecutors (Lk 12:11-12). The parable of the begging widow is related to the coming of the Son of Man, who will establish the final justification of the elect against their oppressors (Lk 18:7-8). And by connecting the parable of the begging friend with the Our Father prayer (Lk 11:11-4), Luke locates it in the same eschatological horizon as the parable of the begging widow; for in Luke's understanding the Our Father prayer begs in particular for the reign of God that brings freedom from every oppression, for daily bread for those who are dispossessed because of their confession, for the forgiveness of sins for those who themselves forgive their persecutors (cf. Lk 23:34), provides assurance with regard to the coming judgment, and for protection from the temptation of defection in view of the threatening persecution. This kind of situational relatedness, which first appears in Luke's parables of the begging friend and the begging widow, confirms that we have to do in these instances with Lukan creations.
Other parables from Luke's special material also address the situation of persecution. In Lk 14:26-33 Luke applies two traditional sayings, which emphasize the seriousness of discipleship, to the concrete situation of his time: the Christian must be prepared to give up all family ties - Luke apparently has the exile of confessors in mind - and in the extreme case to endure even martyrdom, like his crucified Lord. Two parables clarify the seriousness of such discipleship: whoever wants to build a tower will give up such a project when he determines that the cost exceeds his wealth (14:28-30), and whoever is attacked by an overwhelming enemy begs for peace before he is defeated (14:31-32). The applications that follow these parables have in view the usual punishment for persecuted confessors, namely, confiscation of their possessions: "So also every one of you who does not renounce all he has cannot be my disciple" (14:33). This application is characteristic for Luke's so-called "poverty piety," which does not have a general social background, but must be interpreted entirely with regard to the situation of persecution: the confessor is threatened with the loss of possessions, and whoever still has possessions must support the one from whom everything has been taken. Given this specifically Lukan application, the two parables themselves, which derive their imagery from everyday experience and are not known outside of Luke, may be redactional compositions of Luke the evangelist.
Luke concludes an extended speech to the disciples, setting forth various rules of conduct for the community, with the parable of the servant who can expect no special reward when he does what is his duty (17:7-10). This parable also belongs to Luke's special material. The theme of the parable, undemanding service of God, is also found in both Hellenism and Judaism, and the parable itself might have its home in Judaism, or Jewish Christianity, if it was not first constructed by Luke to illustrate the wide-spread idea that serves as its basis.
The parable of the unfruitful fig tree (Lk 13:6-9) derives likewise from Luke's special material, and likewise employs familiar imagery. Luke places this parable at the end of a speech having to do with repentance, which is introduced with two parables from the Sayings Source, which warn against missing the signs of the imminent End (Lk 12:54-59). For the fig tree, however, additional time is made available to bear fruit. We peer, therefore, into the situation at the time of Luke, in which the End has not come and the additional time granted is interpreted as a time of divine patience to make up for neglected repentance. Luke may also have constructed this parable himself, or taken it from Jewish tradition, as he did in the preceding scenes of the bloodbath carried out by Pilate among the Galileans and the collapse of the
The recommendation to take a lesser seat at a dinner party rather than a higher one (Lk 14:7-11) is not a parable, but a wide-spread wisdom teaching (cf. Prov 25:6f.). Luke may have first interpreted this recommendation as a parable, and related it to the likewise widely known saying that whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted, presumably, in view of the humiliation that his persecuted communities take upon themselves in the expectation of being exalted by God in his own time.
There is only one parable in the Lukan special material that with some certainty goes back to pre-Lukan tradition, namely the parable of the dishonest steward (Lk 16:1-7), for there can be no doubt that the interpretation Luke gives to this parable, in the context of his "poverty piety," and the exhortation to unselfish dealing with earthly possessions, is inappropriate for the parable itself. To be sure, the original meaning of the parable is debated, and its origin is unclear. It is conceivable that it stood in the Sayings Source and was deleted by Matthew because of its offensive story.
PARABOLIC TEACHINGS IN MATTHEW'S SPECIAL MATERIAL
All the parabolic teachings from Matthew's special material relate to the concrete situation addressed by the evangelist in his book, and thus prove to be Matthew's own creations, in which, of course, he picks up many novelistic motifs of Jewish parabolic teachings. We always have to do with an integrated story, but not the end product of a longer history of tradition, that might be disclosed by inner tensions and discontinuities in the narrative. The basic characteristic of the situation in which and for which Matthew writes is the emerging separation of the Christian community from the synagogue as the consequence of the Pharisaic restoration after the Jewish war. Whoever cannot align themselves with the Pharisaic orientation must leave the synagogue. At the time of Matthew, this process of separation, which involved not only Christians, is still not fully completed. To avoid persecution, Christians still attempt to legalize themselves vis-à-vis the Roman state as members of the synagogue by payment of the
The judgment of the world portrayed in Mt 25:31-46 is promulgated not over the Christian community, but over the nations, and these are judged according to how they have conducted themselves with regard to the persecuted, dispossessed, exiled or imprisoned Christians (cf. Mt 10:40-42). On the one hand, this provides comfort for Christians; on the other hand, however, it should be understood as a warning for Gentiles, among whom, in Matthew's eyes, not the least important are the numerous God-fearers, who continue to be tolerated in the Pharisaic synagogue no more than Christians. Among them, Christians could most likely find understanding and support; and the one who judges the world will regard the way those persons who have been forced back into paganism conduct themselves towards Christians as if it had been done to himself.
The well-known parable of the labourers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-15), who receive the same compensation for working a different lengths of time, and whose complaining about such injustice is not without merit, is hardly suited in itself for deducing the will of God in a general way, but must have specific circumstances in view. And since it is addressed to the disciples, or as the case may be, to those community members in Matthew's own time, who refer to the faithful discipleship they have maintained for a long while (Mt 19:27-29), it embodies the appeal to these Christians to recognize "late comers" as fully valid members of the community. It is also very possible that more than a few god-fearing Gentiles, having been excluded from the synagogue, joined the Christian community-according to Mt 3:14f., it was expected that they would allow themselves to be baptized-in which they were spared from returning again to paganism, and which furthermore provided that religious support which they had found in the synagogue. The parable of the labourers in the vineyard appeals to Christians not to burden such persons with the fact that they only later first found their way into the Christian community, but to welcome them into their midst as equally entitled brothers and sisters.
The parable of the two sons (Mt 21:28-32) is addressed to the Jewish leaders. The Jews appear in the figure of the second son, who declares that he is ready to work in the vineyard, but does not go to work. Matthew explains that in a similar way the Jews did not believe John when he came to them in the "way of righteousness," taking up a statement from the Sayings Source (Lk 7:29f), which he removes from its original location. And even later they did not allow themselves to be diverted from this rejection, as Matthew establishes with regard to the Jewish leaders of his own time (cf. Mt 21:45). Therefore, these "sons of the kingdom" will be cast into the outer darkness (Mt 8:15). On the other hand, the first son, who at first refuses to work, but then does the will of his father, resembles those tax collectors and sinners from the past who followed John's preaching of repentance. In Matthew's time they can hardly represent Christians in general, to whom an original "no" cannot be imputed, but probably represent Gentile members of the synagogue, who remained distant from the Christian community for a long time, but now turn to it because, like the tax collectors and sinners dispised by the Pharisees, they must leave the synagogue; in 18:17 Matthew employs "Gentile" and "tax collector" as equivalent concepts.
A corresponding background can also be perceived in Matthew's reworking of the traditional parable of the marriage feast (Mt 22:1-14). Matthew clearly identifies the invited guests, who would not come, with the Jews, since Matthew also takes up the destruction of
Matthew obviously places great value on the parable of the tares among the wheat, which he relates in Mt 13:24-30, making use of motifs from the parable of the seed growing by itself (Mk 4:26-29), and for which he provides an allegorical interpretation in 13:36-43. Jüicher already perceived correctly that the story and the interpretation are reciprocally related with one another and that both derive from the same hand. Even without the accompaning explicit interpretation, the point of the allegory would be fully understandable: the community should not anticipate the comming judgment of God, for otherwise there is danger of rooting up a good plant, i.e., rejecting an upstanding Christian. To be sure, the precise instruction concerning the carrying out of church discipline in Mt 18:15-18, which regulates the process for exclusion from the community, is also a piece of Matthew's redaction, so a hardly bearable tension would result if one wanted to relate the allegory of wheat and tares, which precisely excludes such a distinction between "good" and "evil," to the same community that practiced a strict church discipline. The interpretation of the field as the world (13:38) would also be unfortunate if the field represented the community in which false teachers have announced their presence. In the interpretation, however the word "tares" refers to persons who practice temptation and spread lawlessness, persons therefore who are met with elsewhere in Matthew (Mt 7:23; 12:35; 18:6-9; 23:28; 24:10-12). It has to do with false prophets (Mt 7:15, 22; 24:11), who by an appeal to Jesus (Mt 7:22) apparently attempt to keep Christians in the synagogue and win them over for their Pharisaic way. In any case, they go their own way and endeavour to win Christians in Matthew's community for themselves. The allegory, therefore, has those still unresolved circumstances in view in which the separation of the Christian community is taking place and inner-Christian conflict also arises. Matthew perhaps regards the collapse of Pharisaic activity and the further participation of Christians on the synagogue as still not impossible, and he may reckon with the possibility that there are also still Christians in the synagogue who are afraid to declare their faith openly, as the Gospel of John explicitly attests in a similar situation: "... many believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it. lest they should be put out of the synagogue" (Jn 12:42; cf. 3:2; 7:50-52). In any case, Matthew does not want to entirely lose those Christians who do not belong to his own community. The allegory of the tares and the wheat thus warns members of Matthew's community not to create established fact prematurely and write off all those persons who have not joined them.
This idea corresponds to the interpretation Matthew gives to the traditional parable of the lost sheep. To begin with, it means, in a saying of Jesus: "Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me" (Mt 18:5). Then, after Matthew has emphatically warned those tempters who want to retain for themselves the "little ones who believe in Jesus" (Mt 18:6-9), he admonishes the community, referring to the parable of the lost sheep, to attend to these "little ones," whose angels continually behold the face of the heavenly father, for "it is not the will of your heavenly father that one of these little ones should perish" (Mt 18:10-14). This sequence in Matthew's Gospel obviously has real children in view who, as the consequence of persecution, have lost their parents through death or exile, and regarding whom conflict has arisen between the Christian community and the synagogue, or between two Christian communities, about their future and where they belong.
Since the Gospel writer's tolerant attitude toward Christians who do not join his community could be misunderstood in such a way as to justify a reservation with regard to confession, Matthew directly adds to the interpretation of his allegory of the wheat and the tares the little parables about the treasure in a field (Mt 13:44) and the costly pearl (13:45f), which issue an unmistakable summons to stake everything on one card and, for the sake of the one thing that the Christian faith grants, to let go of all other security. This seems to be a clear admonition for undecided Christians, who Love the praise of men more than praise from God" (Jn 12:43). Matthew certainly expects members of his community to refrain from making rash judgments concerning others, but at the same time there is not doubt that unqualified commitment and unreserved decision are required for all Christians.
With the parable of the fish net and its interpretation (Mt 13:47-50), Matthew concludes the relating of seven parables that he grouped together in 13:1-50, and indeed, as he expressly affirms in retrospect, as a teacher of the kingdom of God, who like a good householder brings forth from his treasure something old and something new (Mt 13:52). The something new also includes the concluding parable of the fish net, whose allegorizing interpretation, which isolates the idea of judgment from the allegory of the wheat and the tares, runs fully parallel with the story. In the same way as the field that contains both wheat and tares, useable and unusable fish are found in the net. Just as the unusable fish are sorted out on the beach and thrown away, so will the angels at the end of the age separate the evil ones from the righteous and throw them in the furnace of fire. In his final parable, therefore, Matthew no longer lifts up the tolerant fellowship of good and bad applicable in earthly circumstances, but only the eschatological separation. That is an appropriate conclusion for the collection of parables, which without doubt, rather than having a specific, situation-related teaching in view, aims primarily at this conclusion itself.
The lengthily parable of the unforgiving servant (Mt 18:23-35), which in other respects presupposes a non-Jewish legal relationship and offers a fully integrated story, unfolds the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer, which the story-teller recalls word for word: "And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." In the brief interpretation (18:35), Matthew relates his parable expressly to conduct within the Christian brotherhood, and this focus already allows us to suspect that we do not have to do primarily with a generally edifying teaching, for the readiness of Christians to forgive is in itself naturally not limited to fellow Christians. The context in which Matthew places the parable confirms this suspicion. The parable is preceded, first of all, by instructions regarding community discipline (Mt 18:15-18 (20)), which enjoin the gathered community to exclude an unrepentant sinner- presumably in view are primarily differences in teaching relating to exclusion from the synagogue-from their midst and to regard such a person as a "Gentile and a tax collector" (cf. the parable of the wedding garment in Mt 22:11-14). In response to this, Peter asks how often one should forgive his brother (!) (Mt 18:21f.), and Jesus' answer, that readiness for forgiveness is unlimited, then emphatically illustrates the parable of the unforgiving servant. The parable is to be understood, therefore, not only as an illustration but also as a concretizing of the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer. Given the need for church discipline in Matthew's communities, the simultaneous readiness to restore excluded members of the community at any time, if they examine themselves and repents of their misconduct, is remarkable. The community thus passes on in small change the graciousness of God they have received. Even the parable of the unforgiving servant, therefore, accords very well with the redactional interests of Matthew the gospel writer, and there is just as little indication here as in all the other parables from Matthew's special material we have considered that the gospel writer himself did not compose this parable as well.
Only one more piece from Matthew's special material remains to be considered, namely, the parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Mt 25:1-13); and with regard to this parable there is at first a plausible reason to doubt that it was composed by Matthew himself. The interpretation that Matthew gives for this parable states: "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour" (15:13). The parable that is finally related, however, and which gives no indication of an earlier version and/or secondary reworking, clearly mandates not continual watchfulness, but rather continual preparedness for the coming of the Lord. It cannot be insignificant that according to the story the arrival of the bridegroom is delayed, and if for this reason both the wise and the foolish virgins fall asleep, the exhortation to "watch" seems to miss the meaning of the parable, which clearly has to do with the different ways in which the wise and the foolish virgins prepare for the later arrival of the bridegroom. The parable focuses not on the temporal imminence of the arrival, but on the preparedness, considering the delay in his arrival, to appropriately receive the bridegroom. If the presupposed problem of postponement excludes the possibility that the parable came from the mouth of Jesus, neither does it seem to derive from the pen of Matthew.
In its final scene, however, the parable in fact includes a clear reference to the situation in which the entire Gospel of Matthew originated. The foolish virgins knock on the closed door: "Lord, Lord, open to us," and they receive the answer, "I do not know you" (25:11f). In the same way, in Mt 7:15-23 the apostatized "false prophets," who preach in the name of Jesus, cast out demons, and perform many mighty deeds, also said "Lord, Lord" (7:21), and also received the answer, "I never knew you" (7:23); for "not everyone who says 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my heavenly father" (7:21). The parallel is clear: the foolish virgins, who have no oil in their lamps, are like the false prophets, who do not do the will of Jesus and thus are not prepared when he arrives; but the wise virgins, on the contrary, are always prepared for his arrival, because, as their supply of oil metaphorically indicates, they act in accordance with the will of Jesus. With the parable of the ten virgins, therefore, we directly perceive the situation in which the forceful separation from the synagogue has led to a division among the Christians. In view of the formation of Christian groups who have not joined his own community, Matthew affirms that such persons are not appropriately prepared for the coming of the Lord and that at the end of time the door to the
The initially plausible objection, therefore, that the Gospel writer could have misunderstood the parable as an admonition to watchfulness, on the contrary, turns out to be itself a misunderstanding. Mt 24:43f. shows that Matthew equates the concepts of "watchfulness" and "preparedness," so that the "watch therefore" used in Mt 25:13 to interpret the parable cannot be taken in a narrow temporal sense, but must refer to continual preparedness, as the wise virgins demonstrate, but the foolish virgins regretfully do not. Here as everywhere else, Matthew employs the motif of watchfulness no longer with reference to the expectation of an imminent arrival of a new age, but in view of the uncertainty concerning when the End will come, relates it to the wise foresight of those for whom the coming of the End at any time will never be a surprise because they are always equipped for it.
LITERARY PARABOLIC TEACHINGS IN MARK AND THE SAYINGS SOURCE
Tradition-historical analysis of the parabolic teachings in the Gospel of Mark and the Sayings Source cannot begin with special material which these sources elaborate. For in contrast to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, for Mark and the Sayings Source we do not have access to comparable written sources. Nevertheless, with regard to individual parabolic teachings in Mark and the Sayings Source, it can be said, in view of their form, that their origin must have been literary in character and, because of their content that they cannot have derived from the preaching of Jesus.
In the case of Mark, the issue has to do first of all with the parable of four kinds of soil (Mk 4:3-8), for which an interpretation follows in 4:14-20. The story and its interpretation stand in such complete agreement with one another that one must conclude that the parable was drafted on the basis of its interpretation. If this conclusion, which already occurred to Julicher, is often contested, this is based not on persuasive exegetical observations, but on the prior conviction that a primitive version of the parable of the four soils must go back to the preaching of Jesus. In reality, however, we have to do with an original literary exposition that does not disdain allegorical methods and employs well known metaphors of seed, sower, soil, and fruit, but which discloses no traces of secondary reworking in the story and its interpretation. The subject of the parabolic teaching also locates this in the time of the later community, which already knows tribulation and persecution "on account of the word" and in which the "secularization" is gaining ground. To determine the occasion and intention of the parable of the four soils more precisely, of course, would require disclosure and analysis of the literary context in which it originally belonged, which has been carried out in another connection.34 Such an analysis shows that the parable has in view all the members of the Christian community, including the catechumens. It holds up a mirror before the eyes of them all, urging them to be like the fruitful soil, and at the same time lets the catechumens know what they are in for if they become full members of the community.
With the images of the vineyard, the vine-grower and the expected fruit taken from Isa 5:1f., 7, the parable of the wicked tenants (Mk 12:1-11) employs a similar metaphorical method as the parable of the four soils, and in both cases the allegorical elements of the story are unmistakable: God is the owner of the vineyard who first sends his servants, the prophets, and then his only beloved son to the vineyard to collect the produce of the garden. An explicit interpretation is not required, for the reader understands the illustrative story as well as the chief priests does, concerning whom it is said in 12:12 that they perceived that Jesus had referred to them with the picture of the wicked tenants. Understood in terms of its interpretation, the story is compelling and stylistically complete in itself. There is therefore no reason to trace it back to a "primitive" version, which nevertheless often happens; and since it has the death and resurrection of Jesus as its subject and presupposes the appointment of Jesus as the powerful Son of God, it cannot already have belonged to the preaching of Jesus. Furthermore, its formal structure and differentiated content necessitates the assumption that it is a literary creation. In this case as well, a precise determination of its occasion and intention presupposes consideration of the parable's original literary context. It is addressed to the chief priests who take Jesus to task on account of his cleansing of the Temple, and gives notice that their doom is imminent and that the worship service which they conduct with his gifts, will be placed in the hands of others. The narrator obviously already looks back on the destruction of the Temple; and he conceives the Christian community as the group of new tenants, namely, as the holy priesthood, and the Christian worship service as the place, foreseen in the salvation plan of God and arranged for long ago, where the salvation gifts of God, the "inherited portion" in the parable's picture, are rightly administered.
The Sayings Source also has two parables that already by their form show themselves to be redactional elaborations, since otherwise the Sayings Source contains only similitude’s in the narrow sense, i.e., which portray a circumstance that assumes spontaneous agreement: Who among you would not also... The parable of the great meal (Lk 14:16-24/Mt 22:2-14) and the parable of the entrusted money (Lk 19:12-27/Mt 25:14-30), in contrast, report in narrative breadth a thoroughly unusual solitary case. Both are graphically related and bear metaphorical or, as the case may be, allegorical features. Their figurative material is also known from early Jewish parables. Their original versions can be reconstructed from parallel synoptic traditions with relative certainty.
Even with regard to content, both parables direct us to a later time. Luke may have transmitted the parable of the great meal with relatively little reworking. To be sure, one gladly identifies those who were first invited to the great meal, but in the decisive moment did not appear, with pious Jews, and those invited afterwards from the streets and alleys with the sinners and tax collectors around Jesus. But it is difficult to maintain that these had not been invited until then. Not invited, however, in pre-Christian times, were the Gentiles; and the parable is related therefore from the perspective of a largely Gentile-Christian community, which connects their own invitation into the reign of God with the unsuccessful mission among the Jews already complained about by Paul (Rom 9:1-5). While Paul, however, still hopes for the eschatological conversion of
The parable of the entrusted money was reworked very little by either Matthew or Luke, but on the whole is better transmitted by Matthew. It seems to have been constructed as the striking conclusion to the Sayings Source, which, as is well known, contained no passion narrative or Easter stories, and not inappropriately brings the final judgment into view in which every Christian must render an account to his returning Lord. They are obligated to this accounting in view of the "wealth" that the absent nobleman, in whom one easily recognizes the exalted Jesus, has entrusted to his servants. They are the gifts of the Spirit which the Christian must make the most of. And even if these gifts are distributed in different ways, or, as the case may be, produce an effect of different magnitude, all Christians must do what they can, and none may bury their treasure. Although some details of the interpretation may remain in doubt, the parable nevertheless clearly reflects the situation of the abiding community, which approaches the end of the age, but which must also give a good account of it in the meantime.
Conclusion
THE PARABOLIC TEACHINGS FROM THE SAYINGS TRADITION
The parabolic teachings that still remain to be discussed are generally traditions that Matthew and/or Luke took over from the Sayings Source, whereby in most cases Luke's rendition of the text from the Sayings Source is more reliable. In some cases Mark transmits a "doublet" to this parabolic material, or perhaps a parable of his own that derives from the same sayings tradition. In this range of tradition we encounter, without exception, parables in the narrow sense, which only seldom accumulate individual parabolic features. The transition from the language of figures and comparisons to fully developed parables is fluid; and one can doubt, for example, whether the teachings about the narrow door and the difficult way (Lk 13:24/Mt 7:13f), about the salt that loses its spice (Mk 9:49-50, par), or about girded loins and burning lamps (Lk 12:35) should be assigned to one category or the other.
Some pieces of this tradition clearly belong to wisdom thought, namely, the parable of the tree that is known by its fruit (Lk 7:43-44/My 7:15-20; 12:33) and the antithetical twin-parable of the house built on the rock or on the sand (Lk 6:47-49/Mt 7:24-27). Otherwise, however, the parables apparently belong wholly in the sphere of an apocalyptic eschatology, as a survey of the relevant material shows.
When Jesus relates his exorcisms to the eschatological victory over the demons and the accusation of being in league with Satan is made against him, he defends himself with the parable of Beelzebub (Lk 11:17-22/Mt 12:25-29/k 3:23-26). The parable of the eye as the lamp of the body urges that attention be given to the one thing that is necessary at the end of time (Lk 11:34-35/Mr 6:22-23). The parables of the closed door (Lk 13:25-27' cf. Mt 7:21-23; 25:10-12) and settling with one's accuser (Lk 12:58-59; cf. Mt 5:25-26) call to mind that the time for repentance is short and that there is a "too late. With a powerful metaphor, the parables of the watchful servants (Lk 12:36-38; cf. Mt 13:33-37), the watchful householder (Lk 12:39/Mt 24:43) and the wise and foolish stewards (Lk 12:36-39; cf. Mk 13:33-37) call for watchfulness in view of the imminent arrival of the eschatological Judge. However one interprets the significance of the references to changes in weather (Lk 12:54-56/Mt 16:2-4) and changes in seasons (Mk 13:28-29), one cannot overlook the allusion to the end of time. In the parable of the imploring son the community is summoned to urgently pray for the coming of the reign of God (Lk 11:11-12/Mt 7:9-10). The parable of the lost sheep, which Matthew reworked somewhat less than Luke, urges that no one among those who are waiting for the coming of the reign of God should be left behind (Lk 15:4-7/Mt 18:12-13). Against those persons who doubt the coming of the reign of God, the parables of the mustard seed (Lk 13:18/Mt 13:31-32/Mk 4:31-32), the leaven (Lk 13:20/Mt 13:33), and the seed growing by itself (Mk 4:26-29) show that precisely where nothing is to be expected everything is surprisingly imparted. The critical reaction of many Jewish hearers to the eschatological preaching of repentance by John the Baptizer, who was reproached for his asceticism, and Jesus, who was criticized for his liberalism, is reflected in the parable of the children playing (Lk 7:31-34/Mt 11:16-19).
The appearance of individual wisdom parables together with numerous eschatological parables is characteristic of the traditions presupposed by the Sayings Source in general, in which some wisdom material appears alongside predominantly apocalyptic sayings. From this observation it can be recognized that the sayings tradition collected in the Sayings Source did not have a unified origin. For the apocalyptic expectation of the end of this age and the joy in creation found in the wisdom teachings can hardly have been originally united, and the sayings tradition known to Mark seems to have contained only apocalyptic material. However one decides this question, the primary stream of this tradition, the message of the end of this world and the imminence of the reign of God, refers back to the proclamation of Jesus, which to this extent constitutes the basic component of the synoptic gospels. And since this tradition is uniformly oriented on the eschatological message of the imminent reign of God, the individual parables are understandable from this perspective even if they are accompanied by no corresponding reference or explicit interpretation.
The question that cannot be decided, however, is how far the eschatological parables individually derive from Jesus himself, how far they possibly already belonged to the earlier message of the Baptizer, or how far they are community creations, formulated in view of the delayed advent of the new age. Nor can it be decided to what extent they were transmitted in oral or written form, or when an oral tradition became a written one. The Sayings Source used by Matthew and Luke, in any case, was a written source, and the "doublets" and other material for which Mark was indebted to the sayings tradition may also have derived from a written source, to which indeed the "let the reader understand" (Mk 13:14) in the eschatological discourse directly refers. But even if the writing down of oral tradition began very early, or even if we assume the presence of a written tradition from the very beginning, and apart from the question to what extent the parables lead directly back to Jesus, an explanation must be given for the fact that this eschatological-apocalyptic parable tradition is not found outside the Sayings Source or the synoptic traditions.
Can one attempt to explain this observation, which is not always clearly taken into account, with Ernst Käsemann's information that while Jesus certainly began with the apocalyptic message of John the Baptizer; he broke with this and proclaimed the presence of the God who is near at hand? He supposedly called people to daily service of God, as if, given the immediacy of the grace of God, there were no shadows over the world. The apocalyptic expectation of the imminent end of this age, on the other hand, first derives from the primitive community; it is rooted in the experience of Jesus' cross and resurrection, and divorces itself from Jesus' preaching of the God who is near. Does the post-Easter origin of the apocalyptic parables, which is presupposed by Käsemann's construction, explain the tradition-historical findings that these parabolic teachings are first encountered relatively late in the already literary synoptic tradition? Käsemann's conception of earliest Christian history, however, presupposes that the apocalyptic parables and the corresponding sayings of the Jesus-tradition were transmitted, or constructed, in connection with the confession of the cross and resurrection and the designation of Jesus as the Christ and the powerful Son of God. But nowhere do they show the slightest trace of such a horizon for their origin or transmission. Characteristic of the apocalyptic material is rather the lack of any relationship with the early Christian kerygma and the absence of any reference to Christology. On the other hand, nothing in connection with the kerygmatic and Christological formulas already widespread in Paul points to the apocalyptic parables of the Jesus tradition. Moreover, if one considers the entire parable tradition, Käsemann's conception turns the situation remarkably upside down; for according to his conception, the later parabolic teachings, which owe their origin to the writing activity of the evangelists, stand nearer to the original message of Jesus than earlier parables that possibly still belong to an oral phase of the tradition. One cannot attribute any kind of historical probability to such a historical construction.
When these tradition-historical problems became apparent, Christian Hermann Weisse, the father of the two-source theory, declared, for example, that the sayings source was a private record of memories of the apostle Matthew and first found wide use in the church at a relatively late date. Athanasius Polag's statement, that the pre-Easter tradition in the sayings source was not collected out of keygmatic interests, but owes its transmission to "historical concerns" of the community, points basically in the same direction. In this regard, the Gospel of Mark sufficiently shows how little early Christianity was willing and able to transmit pre-Easter Jesus traditions as such, i.e., with no reference to their Christological kerygma. Siegfried Schulz, therefore, is in principle correct when he traces the sayings tradition along with the apocalyptic material back to an independent community. Contrary to Schulz, however, in view of the fact that the Easter confession and, accordingly, a Christology is foreign to this tradition, and that Jesus, like John, appeared on the scene as a prophet, who announced the imminent in breaking of the reign of God, this Q-community must have persisted in the pre-Easter situation. It cannot be assumed that the confession that God raised Jesus from the dead reached all the followers of Jesus, or, as the case may be, convinced them all.
The history of this community of Jesus' followers who persisted in the pre-Easter situation cannot be explored in more detail in the present work. These followers may have had their home in
In contrast, the kerygmatic Easter community of the apostolic age did not transmit these parables any more than they did other teachings of Jesus. This deficit is not based on a rejection of the preaching of the earthly Jesus. Rather, the early Christian confession that God raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 4:24; 8:11; 2 Cor 4:14; Gal 1:1) stands in direct continuity with Jesus' message of the imminent reign of God, as the earliest interpretation of this event shows, which perceives Jesus' resurrection as the beginning of the general resurrection and refers to Jesus as the "first fruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor 15:20; Rev 1:5; Col 1:18; etc.). Early Christianity experienced this Easter event as the fulfilment of the expectation awakened by Jesus and as the beginning of the eschatological New that Jesus announced: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, the new has come" (2 Cor 5:17). Christology and soteriology, as taught in the earliest doctrinal and confessional formulations, are expressions of the certainty of fulfilment. In the fulfilment, however, the expectation expressed in the preaching of Jesus is "aufgehoben&" in the double sense of this word ("given up" or "raised up"). The prophetic message of Jesus in the form of expectation is given up and, at the same time, preserved in the form of fulfilment. This fundamental theological phenomenon explains why the preaching of the earthly Jesus as such is not found in the sphere of the Christological and soteriological kerygma. This material flowed into the synoptic tradition only in a tradition-historical roundabout way and in literary form, and possibly motivated the active production of parabolic teachings that we consequently observe on the redactional level of the gospel writings.
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