ālîm, never receive the designation māšāl in their immediate literary contexts. As so often happens in history, a reality appears before a particular designation for it is applied.THE PARABLES OF JESUS: SEVEN UNFASHIONABLE THESES
I. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS ON THE SEVEN THESES
I have bundled the four final enigmas—Jesus and the Law, Jesus’ parables, the designations of Jesus, and Jesus’ death—at the end of my quest for good reason. Each of these Enigma Variations poses problems both numerous and enormous. It is no wonder that each topic has generated an almost limitless flood of learned monographs and popular works. The bibliographies in Volume Four, on Jesus and the Law, provide abundant evidence for this claim. The parables, however, probably enjoy the patriarchal status of first among equals when it comes to an unending stream of publications.1 No other part of Jesus’ teaching sticks in the Christian psyche quite as tenaciously as do his parables. Sunday school and catechism class, the reading of Gospel parables at worship accompanied by homilies on them—all serve to introduce the Christian mind and imagination to this special vehicle of Jesus’ teaching at an early and impressionable age. The regular reoccurrence of Jesus’ parables in the lectionary cycle of many churches, references in popular culture (“Good Samaritan,” “Prodigal Son”), and the grip that a great short story holds on a person’s memory all reinforce the importance of the parables for the remainder of a Christian’s life.2
In addition to the pervasive influence of church, home, and general culture (both Christian and non-Christian), academics are attracted to the parables for various reasons. Many of the scholars involved in the quest for the historical Jesus have been prominent as well in parable research, since they are convinced that the parables supply the most reliable traditions about and the easiest access to the message of Jesus. This belief that the parables represent some of the most trustworthy nuggets of material from the historical Jesus binds together scholars of such divergent theological views as Adolf Jülicher, C. H. Dodd, Joachim Jeremias, and Klyne Snodgrass on the one hand and Robert Funk, John Dominic Crossan, and Bernard Brandon Scott on the other. Yet even among academics devoted to the quest, the parables yield remarkably different portraits of Jesus. For example, a Dodd or a Jeremias may find in the parables a way to present a Jesus who is critically assessed and surprisingly fresh but still stands in basic continuity with traditional Christian doctrine. In contrast, for scholars like Funk, the parables give access to an iconoclastic Jesus who shatters traditional Christian faith and even traditional theism. It is in order to define my own approach in this contentious arena of parable research that I begin this volume by enunciating seven propositions or theses about the nature of Jesus’ parables—theses that become increasingly controversial as we move from the first to the seventh.
As immediate preparation for these seven theses, let me briefly resume and develop a key point I touched upon in the introduction to this volume. It is no surprise that almost every area of Jesus research is plagued (or enlivened, depending on one’s point of view) by diametrically opposed judgments on the meaning of the individual words and deeds of the Nazarene, as well as of his ministry as a whole. So little evidence is available, but so much is at stake. Yet, even amid this diversity, the vast range of Jesus-portraits that arise from the study of the parables is especially striking. One reason for this wide spectrum of interpretations lies in the very nature of Jesus’ parable-speech, as distinct, for example, from his teaching on legal matters. As we saw in Volume Four of A Marginal Jew, Jesus’ prohibition of divorce or oath-taking is a clear, straightforward pronouncement expressed in unambiguous language and located within the context of Jewish legal debates of the time. Modern scholars may argue about whether a particular legal teaching goes back to the historical Jesus. If they judge that it does, these scholars may then opine on whether this teaching has any binding force on Christian moral theology or on one’s personal life today. But for historians who do not propound far-fetched interpretations simply to display their cleverness, the “wiggle room” for interpreting Jesus’ halakic pronouncements on divorce or oaths is relatively narrow. Legal directives, of their very nature, aim at being clear-cut and precise, since they seek to elicit assent and compliance from a whole group.
The parables of Jesus constitute an essentially different type of speech. Parables create a story world that listeners are invited to enter, experience, and even struggle with as they are confronted with challenges about how they should see and react to God and the world. This story world, which “sucks one in,” is conjured up by imaginative and forceful metaphors, similes, and other figures of speech. Such allusive, “indirect” speech is meant, in the famous phrase of Dodd, to “tease” the mind “into active thought.”3 In other words, the parables often (though not always) have a riddle-like quality that calls upon the hearer to ponder a puzzle, confront a surprise twist, or formulate a resolution that the parable’s story requires but does not supply.
Herein lies a basic difference between Jesus’ ḥălākâ and his parables. The challenge posed to the person listening to Jesus’ halakic teaching is: Will you assent to and act upon these concrete commands or prohibitions? Will you, for example, obey Jesus by avoiding divorce or oath-taking in your life? The challenge posed to the person listening to Jesus’ parables is rather: Why is Jesus telling this parable and what does he intend by it? Does this parable speak of human life in general or specifically of Jesus and his disciples? What, if any, demand is Jesus making on me by telling me this parable? What different ways of thinking, acting, or seeing reality does this parable challenge me to adopt? Or is this parable a commentary on and a warning about Jesus’ opponents? In short, the suggestive, metaphorical world of parables functions differently and calls forth a different kind of response than does the clear, crisp world of halakic teaching. The parables’ openness to multiple meanings for multiple audiences is thus a reality to be dealt with first of all on the level of the historical Jesus, long before modern hermeneutics gets its slippery hands on the material. Such openness is simply endemic to this type of speech.
But this range of interpretative possibilities expands exponentially once we decide to drop any concern about the historical Jesus or the original Sitz im Leben of his parables in favor of one or another modern hermeneutical approach. Once the parables are detached from the framework of an unusual 1st-century Jew named Jesus, they become capable of bearing almost any meaning that an ingenious interpreter manages to read into them. For those who exalt the text as the locus of meaning, the parables are treated as autonomous pieces of literary art, pulsating with the explosive power of the many meanings inherent in the text. For those who emphasize the reader as the creator of meaning, the parables may be employed as mirrors into which an interpreter can gaze à la Narcissus to ponder his or her existence in the world. Indeed, such mirrors can be custom-designed with a built-in existentialist, psychological, socioeconomic, or theological optic. Hence, no matter the precise approach that modern critics adopt, the parables become, in effect if not in theory, empty and moldable vessels into which interpreters can pour whatever meaning or negation of meaning they consider productive of new insights.4 Speaking personally, every time I open the latest parable book hot off the press, I sense how weighed down the new author feels by all the previous volumes that have already squeezed every conceivable message out of these short stories. One sympathizes with the latest entrant into the lists as he or she strains, against the dictum of Ecclesiastes, to say something new under the sun about these more-than-twice-told tales.
Whatever the worth of such valiant attempts, they are not the goal of the present work. Within the strictly historical project of A Marginal Jew, the intricate web of structuralist analysis woven in an ahistorical vacuum or the clever word games of postmodernism are of no interest. Our quest concerns what the historical Jesus intended when he decided to use parables in general and to speak this or that parable in particular. This historical purpose is one reason why I have kept the consideration of parables until late in my overall project. Without a firm historical framework arising out of the mission of a peculiar 1st-century Jewish prophet, these parables are open to as many different interpretations as there are imaginative critics. In contrast, once we locate and anchor the parables within the portrait of the historical Jesus that has slowly emerged throughout our first four volumes, the possible range of a given parable’s meaning is considerably reduced—though a range still exists.
Hence, granted the contours of the historical Jesus that have gradually taken shape over our quest, his parables obviously do not function like Zen koans or the endlessly mutating word games with which professors bemuse and amuse their otherwise bored students. Whatever else they are, the parables of the historical Jesus are comparative short stories used by this Elijah-like eschatological prophet as he seeks to regather a scattered Israel in preparation for the coming kingdom of God. Like the OT prophets from Nathan to Ezekiel, Jesus employs memorable stories to draw his fellow Israelites into his worldview, bring them up short, and force them to reconsider their lives and values in the face of some crisis. For all their puzzling nature, Jesus’ parables are therefore useful to him only insofar as they convey in a uniquely powerful way his prophetic proclamation to Israel. As such, they possess and communicate content and intentionality, aimed at a specific people at a pivotal moment in their history. In fact, as symbolic “word-events,” the parables cohere with Jesus’ symbolic healings and exorcisms as well as with his symbolic “street theater,” such as his “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem and his “cleansing” of the temple. All these words and deeds coalesce to confront Israel with the definitive challenge of a Jew who sees himself as the eschatological prophet sent to the chosen people in the last hour of their present history. For all their playful aspects, Jesus’ parables are not idle games but specialized tools for teaching. For all their comic or ironic undertones, they are deadly serious in their intent.
In sum, Jesus’ overall mission and message provide his parables with their basic frame of reference. Contained and constrained by his core eschatological purpose, Jesus’ parables do not mean anything or everything or nothing. Jesus does not go to the trouble of formulating and telling parables to his disciples and to the crowds simply to dazzle them with his verbal dexterity and then let them make of the parables whatever they will. Rather, the parables are one way in which Jesus engagingly conveys and forcefully inculcates the message that he also proclaims in nonparabolic speech. This is not to say that Jesus’ parables are simply rhetorical decorations adorning a message that could just as easily be taught without them. The parables communicate Jesus’ message and challenge by involving the listener in a manner and with an impact that has no neat verbal substitute. While certainly communicating Jesus’ prophetic message, the parables have at the same time a teasing indeterminacy, an openness to more than one meaning or application that makes them especially suited to draw people (learned and unlearned alike) into dialogue, challenging their presuppositions and opening up new horizons that the audience must ponder without the comfort of pat answers supplied by the teacher.
Thus, the fact that Jesus’ parables are not susceptible of any and every meaning imaginable does not signify that they may not conjure up a range of possible meanings instead of one fixed moral or a single point of comparison. Indeed, this flexibility may have been one reason why Jesus found parables especially useful in his itinerant ministry. The parables were easily repeatable in and adaptable to new situations and new audiences, who would be hearing the basic melodies of the parables in different keys and with different timbres and dynamics.5 In seeking to understand Jesus’ parables, one must hold on to both ends of a paradox: Jesus’ parables were indeed riddle-speech, but riddles within a larger framework of meaning, not riddles proclaiming the nihilism of no definite meaning.
With these introductory observations behind us, let us now delve into the nature and problem of Jesus’ parables in greater detail. Since I differ markedly from the opinions found in many present-day parable books, I will lay out my basic positions on the parables in terms of seven unfashionable theses. That is to say, I will hammer out my own stand on Jesus’ parables in dialectical fashion, pointing out in each thesis where I differ from views commonly held by parable scholars.
II. SEVEN UNFASHIONABLE THESES ON THE PARABLES
A. THE NUMBER OF NARRATIVE PARABLES IN THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
Thesis One: The fact that scholars widely and wildly disagree on how many parables of Jesus there are in the Synoptic Gospels reveals a still more embarrassing fact: scholars in general do not agree on what constitutes a parable of Jesus. In other words, there seems to be no consensus on what the precise definition of a Synoptic parable is. Arland J. Hultgren notes that Adolf Jülicher discusses 53 parables, C. H. Dodd 32, Joachim Jeremias 41, Bernard Brandon Scott 29 (plus one found only in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas [hereafter CGT]), Jan Lambrecht 42, and R. Alan Culpepper 49.6 Klyne Snodgrass finds an even broader range, observing that the number proposed by various authors extends from 37 (John Dominic Crossan) to 65 (T. W. Manson).7 Snodgrass himself treats 33 parables (counting Matthew and Luke’s versions of the Talents/Pounds and the Great Supper separately). Actually, Snodgrass counts 38 in all, including both narrative parables and similitudes. The compendium volume edited by Ruben Zimmermann treats 104 Gleichnisse of Jesus, obviously taking the German term Gleichnis in a very broad sense, while at the same time extending the database to include John’s Gospel, CGT, and the Agrapha.8 Thus, the lines of demarcation between parable, similitude, simile, and metaphor are blurry at best. Granted, there will always be debates among form critics about proper definitions and categories, but the parables of Jesus tower above other form-critical disputes in the Gospels. Apart from arguments among modern rhetoricians and students of linguistic theory, one fundamental reason for the disagreements about counting the number of Synoptic parables lies at the root of the matter: the wide range of meaning of the Hebrew noun māšāl in the OT and of the Greek noun parabolē in the NT, as well as in ancient Greek literature in general.
Indeed, the difficulty of fixing a precise meaning for “parable” reaches all the way back to complexities concerning the roots of Hebrew verbs.9 OT Hebrew knows two quite different verbs, with different semantic domains, both of which have the qal form māšal.10 One verb, which is not denominative in its origins, means “to rule” and goes back to the Proto-Semitic root mšl. Although more frequently used in the OT than the second verb to be examined, it has no relation to our discussion or to the word “parable.” The second verb with the qal form māšal is a denominative verb, that is, a verb formed from a noun, in this case, māšāl (“saying,” “proverb”). In qal and piel, the verb accordingly has meanings such as “to formulate a saying,” “to utter a proverb,” or “to recite derisive verses.” Complications arise from the fact that this verb in nifal also has the meaning of “to be like,” in hitpael the meaning “to become like,” and in hifil “to compare.” This meaning derives from a different Proto-Semitic root mtl with the sense of “to be like.” To muddle matters further, in piel the verb māšal can mean “to pose a riddle.” It is from the fertile soil of these two ideas, “proverb” and “comparison” (expressed often in figurative speech or tropes), that the richness of the noun māšāl springs.11
In OT wisdom literature, the noun regularly has the basic meaning of “proverb” or “wise saying.” It appears in parallel formulations with nouns like mĕlîṣâ (“parable”), dibrê ḥăkāmîm (“words of the wise”), and ḥîdōtām (“their riddles”) in Prov 1:6 (cf. v 2 ʾimrê bînâ [“words of intelligence”]). Indeed, the Hebrew title of the Book of Proverbs (mišlê šělōmô [“the proverbs of Solomon”]), as well as the titles of major subdivisions of the book (1:1; 10:1; 25:1), already understands māšāl as a literary category summing up various types of wisdom sayings contained in the volume. Several centuries later, Ben Sira can sum up his entire book with the collective form of the noun māšāl, namely, mōšel (50:27).12
Beyond the basic meaning of “proverb” or “wise saying,” the OT also witnesses to such various meanings as “comparison,” “similitude,” “an object of mockery,” “a song of mockery” (i.e., a taunt song), and “a byword”—reminding us that a proverb can often be used as a taunt.13 By and large, all these meanings of māšāl may be tucked under the capacious category of “wisdom.” Proverbs, axioms, maxims, aphorisms, riddles, bywords, and taunts—whatever the more precise categorization, in general they are most at home in the sapiential literature of the OT. Unfortunately, all too often, many NT commentators quickly jump from this wisdom matrix to the use and meaning of Jesus’ parables in the Synoptics. Therein lies a basic mistake that muddies the waters of NT parable research. It is to dispute this leap of logic that I pose Thesis Two.
B. OT WISDOM NOT THE PRIME ANALOGUE OF THE NARRATIVE PARABLE
Thesis Two: The OT wisdom māšāl is not the prime source or analogue of those “parables” that are most characteristic of and particular to the Synoptic Jesus within the NT corpus. To clarify what I mean here, I must ever so briefly make a point that will receive fuller exposition in subsequent chapters: the parables that are characteristic of and peculiar to the Synoptic Jesus within the NT are not simply one- or two-line proverbs or aphorisms, genres that are found in the Gospel of John, the Pauline epistles, and other NT books as well. The parables peculiar to the Synoptic Jesus are comparisons (be they similes or metaphors) that have been “stretched out” into short stories with at least an implicit beginning, middle, and end—in other words, a mini-narrative with at least an implicit plot line.14 By way of a brief justification of this initial definition of Synoptic parable as narrative parable, I would simply note two facts: (1) This narrative māšāl is the genre that is most frequently designated as parabolē in the Synoptics; other meanings of parabolē (e.g., “proverb,” “enigmatic aphorism,” “the meaning of a parable”) are scattered and infrequent by comparison. (2) This narrative māšāl is the type of parabolē-speech that is most peculiar to the Synoptic Jesus within the NT writings. In other words, while these narrative parables are widespread in all three Synoptic Gospels, they are notably absent in the rest of the NT, including the Gospel of John—as, with two exceptions, is the word parabolē.15
The analogue of Jesus’ “parables” in this distinctive narrative sense is found nowhere in the OT wisdom books. Rather, the analogue is found primarily among the OT prophets, both those portrayed in narrative (i.e., “historical”) books like Samuel–Kings and those whose voice is heard in the explicitly prophetic books of the OT. Or, if one uses the traditional divisions of the Jewish Scriptures (Tanak), the kind of parable characteristic of Jesus is found primarily in the mouths of prophets in the Former and Latter Prophets, that is to say, in the Nĕbî’îm (the Prophets), not the Kĕtûbîm (the Writings). I say “primarily” because, in the Former Prophets, a few parables are spoken by individuals who are not prophets: e.g., Jotham’s fable in Judg 9:8–15, the fictitious story told by the woman of Tekoa to King David in 2 Sam 14:5–8, and the mocking reply of King Jehoash to King Amaziah (another fable) in 2 Kgs 14:9–10.16 Significantly, in these and other parables in the Former Prophets, the general context is the developing, conflict-ridden history of Israel, and the immediate context is one of argument, rebuke, and even condemnation, usually of a king or some other authority figures. This, in itself, is significant for the background of Jesus’ narrative parables.
In the Former Prophets, the most famous example of a “parable” used in a conflict situation is a parable spoken by a prophet, namely, Nathan (2 Sam 12:1–12). His story of the poor man whose ewe lamb is seized by the rich man is used to indict David in veiled manner for his adultery with Bathsheba and his indirect murder of her husband Uriah. With Nathan’s parable we move from the fables of Jotham and Amaziah, which deal with the plant and animal world, to realistic stories of human (inter)action.17 Intriguingly, in all these parables, the speaker supplies an interpretation or application of the story to the present circumstances (what Jewish scholars centuries later would call a nimšāl).18 A prophet appears again as the teller of a juridical or judgment-parable to a king in 1 Kgs 20:39–42, where Ahab is rebuked by a prophet for sparing the life of the Syrian king Ben-Hadad.19
In sum, narrative parables, be they fables about plants and animals or realistic stories about humans, emerge in a context of conflict and judgment in the course of Israel’s premonarchical and monarchical history. They are usually spoken to kings or other authority figures, and some of the most nōtable parables are found in the mouths of prophets. Anyone examining these parables is struck, though, by a surprising point. These narrative parables in the Former Prophets, which any scholar who knows Jesus’ parables would readily label mĕālîm, never receive the designation māšāl in their immediate literary contexts. As so often happens in history, a reality appears before a particular designation for it is applied.
C. THE LATTER PROPHETS AND NARRATIVE PARABLES
Thesis Three: It is in the “writing prophets” (alias the Latter Prophets) that we see both (1) a notable expansion of the genre of comparative short story used in argumentation about key events in Israel’s history and (2) the use of m-š-l vocabulary to designate this type of speech.20 A relatively early and clear example of the development of the genre of comparative narrative moving in the direction of detailed allegory is the Song of the Vineyard in Isa 5:1–7. Here we have a similitude stretched out into a short story of a man cultivating a vineyard. The story reaches a strange, unexpected conclusion: when the vineyard yields wild grapes, the owner totally destroys his vineyard. This conclusion is followed by an application of the story to Yahweh’s relations with and judgment on Jerusalem and Judah. However, the label Isaiah gives the story is not māšāl but rather šîr, a “song” (or possibly even “a love song”).
The expansion of metaphorical narrative into grand allegory takes place most spectacularly in Ezekiel.21 The story of the vine in Ezek 15:1–8 (dealing with Israel and judgment) is relatively short, though longer than the parables we find in the Former Prophets. But the whole of chap. 16 (sixty-three verses!) is taken up with the metaphorical story of Yahweh’s espousal to Jerusalem, her infidelity, and the promised restoration of the unfaithful spouse. It is a case of metaphor stretched out into one long allegorical narrative.22 In chap. 17 we have still another allegory of Israel’s recent history, with an explanation given in Ezekiel’s usual manner. What is especially striking here, though, is the wording of the introduction to the allegorical story in 17:2. Translated literally, the verse reads: “Son of Man, riddle a riddle and ʾparable a parable to the house of Israel” (ben-ʾdm ḥûd ḥîdâ ûmšōl māšāl ʾel bêt yiśrāʾēl). Intriguingly, the LXX translates ḥîdâ as diēgēma (“tale,” “story,” “narrative”) and māšāl as parabolē (as is the LXX’s habit). Thus, the Hebrew of Ezekiel emphasizes that the prophet’s allegorical narrative of Israel’s history is a type of comparison (māšāl) that has a puzzling message inviting attempts to unravel the meaning (ḥîdâ). The LXX both confirms the idea of comparison (parabolē) and underlines the fact that the challenging puzzle is presented in the form of a narrative (diēgēma).23 Thus, in this one example, we have a prophet labeling as a māšāl (parabolē in the Greek) a puzzling allegorical narrative of Israel’s conflicted history with Yahweh, a narrative that announces judgment, implicitly calls for repentance, and receives a detailed allegorical interpretation from the prophet. It is especially instructive that precisely where we see Ezekiel applying the label māšāl to a narrative parable, this parable evinces clear allegorical traits. This is a clear indicator that, from early on, the category of narrative parable (a māšāl in Ezekiel’s usage) was not necessarily opposed to allegory; rather, a parable can be a vehicle of allegorical thought and expression.24
Nor is this a onetime event in Ezekiel. The allegory of the pot in 24:1–14 receives basically the same introduction and labels as in chap. 17: ûmšōl ʾel bêt hammerî māšāl (“and parable to the house of rebellion a parable,” 24:3). As usual, the LXX translates māšāl as parabolē. An additional point should not be missed: here in Ezekiel we see māšāl, while remaining an allegorical narrative, also bearing the meaning of a prophetic oracle foretelling Israel’s future. Actually, the connection of the noun māšāl with the idea of a prophetic oracle of the future is found as early (from the canonical point of view) as the Book of Numbers, where Balaam’s symbolic oracles likewise prophesy Israel’s future, though in a much happier vein (Num 23:7,18; 24:3,15,20–23). That Balaam’s māšāl is equivalent to a prophetic oracle is made clear by its being yoked to the noun nĕ’ûm, the common word for “oracle.” Thus, alongside the Former and Latter Prophets, we have a striking example in the Pentateuch of māšāl (each time translated as parabolē by the LXX), meaning a prophetic utterance employing figurative speech to prophesy Israel’s history.25
The element of prophetic oracle in māšāl / parabolē undergoes further expansion and transformation in later apocalyptic literature. “Parable” becomes a label for eschatological instruction, often communicated within a symbolic vision or dream, which in turn requires interpretation, usually by an angel (see, e.g., 4 Ezra 4:13–21; 5:41–53; the “Parables” or “Similitudes” of Enoch in 1 Enoch 37–71; and in Christian literature the “Parables” or “Similitudes” [parabolai in the Greek, similitudines in the Latin] of the Shepherd of Hermas). In this apocalyptic development, however, the typically OT-prophetic meaning of parable as a short story that challenges the hearers to tease out its meaning is largely lost, though some of the comparisons used by the interpreting angel in 4 Ezra are reminiscent of the fable-parables in the OT.26
This overview of māšāl / parabolē in the OT establishes the basis for the next thesis.
D. JESUS THE TELLER OF PARABLES IN THE PROPHETIC TRADITION
Thesis Four: The Synoptic Jesus who tells narrative parables stands primarily not in the sapiential but in the prophetic tradition of the Jewish Scriptures.27 In other words, Jesus the spinner of narrative parables should be described not in terms of Jesus the sage but rather in terms of Jesus the prophet.28 As with his imitation of Elijah, the itinerant prophet/miracle worker of northern Israel (and possibly of Jeremiah, the celibate prophet predicting the destruction of the temple), Jesus seems in his parable-telling to have reached back quite consciously to the Former and Latter Prophets of the Jewish Scriptures instead of simply reflecting the more recent apocalyptic or sapiential literature of Israel. This assertion admittedly contradicts a large swath of parable research from the last century. From conservative exegetes like Ben Witherington to the far-left Jesus Seminar, as exemplified especially by John Dominic Crossan, the parables of Jesus have been treated as prime examples of Jesus as wisdom teacher or sage.29 I would suggest that this is a major blunder in assigning categories. As I have argued throughout the first four volumes of A Marginal Jew, the historical Jesus presented himself to his fellow 1st-century Palestinian Jews first and foremost as the miracle-working, Elijah-like prophet of the end time. To be sure, Jesus also engaged in halakic debates over the practice of the Mosaic Law and spoke many a sapiential bon mot. Law and wisdom were notable dimensions of his public ministry—which is hardly surprising, since the two were closely intertwined in the religious thought of Late Second Temple Judaism.
But the category that looms the largest and integrates the most important aspects of his activity as well as its denouement is eschatological prophet. Jesus was not put to death by the Roman prefect because he debated other Jews about divorce or the sabbath. He was not executed because Pilate didn’t like some of his wisdom sayings. One more legal debater or popular sage could be tolerated. The eschatological Elijah-like prophet who attracted large enthusiastic crowds and who was believed by some of his followers to be the prophesied Son of David could not be tolerated as he formally entered the ancient Davidic capital at Passover amid acclamations and provocative symbolic actions.30 It is into this overarching category of Jesus as eschatological prophet, surrounded by enthusiastic crowds eager for his teaching as well as his healings, that his use of narrative parables fits perfectly.31 Developing the narrative māšāl out of the traditions seen in the Former and Latter Prophets, Jesus the prophet told striking short stories that employed figurative language meant to be puzzling enough to tease the mind into active thought and personal decision—all within the larger context of prophetic conflict with the ruling class at a critical moment in Israel’s history.32
Indeed, this description may supply us with a brief, impressionistic definition of what a narrative parable of Jesus is: a striking short story that employs figurative language (i.e., a metaphor or simile stretched out into a narrative) and is meant to be puzzling enough to tease the mind into active thought and personal decision. As a chosen rhetorical tool of such an eschatological prophet, we need not be surprised that many of Jesus’ parables carry an eschatological tone, though the parable genre was flexible enough to serve more than one aspect of Jesus’ mission and message. To be sure, Jesus speaks his parables within the larger context of his ministry to the people of Israel, which heralds and to some degree makes present the kingdom of God. However, to try to make all the Synoptic parables speak directly and primarily of the grand history of God’s dealings with Israel or of the kingdom of God is to force them onto a Procrustean bed.33 Many of the so-called “example stories” specific to Luke’s Gospel—notably the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Rich Fool—do not operate on such a grand scale. Indeed, in some of them, sapiential themes blend with the prophetic. The parables, as they stand in the Gospels, do not reflect a Jesus-One-Note.
E. FALSE BLANKET DESCRIPTIONS OF JESUS’ PARABLES
Thesis Five: I have purposely kept my definition of a Synoptic parable as simple (and perhaps even as vague) as possible—and that should be the rule for any definition of Jesus’ parables. Any attempt to define Jesus’ parables in greater detail, with a laundry list of supposedly essential characteristics, threatens to introduce qualifications that are true of some but not of all the parables of Jesus as found in the Synoptics. All too often this questionable procedure flows from the logical mistake of begging the question, that is, presupposing in one’s argument what remains to be proven. Some critics, at least implicitly, decide beforehand which parables come from the historical Jesus and then use their hypothetical database of “genuine” parables to define the essential characteristics of any of Jesus’ parables. A partial list of such questionable characteristics includes the following:
1. Jesus’ parables draw upon events of everyday peasant life or the cycle of nature in Palestine.34 Not always. We also have parables about kings and their dealings with their court servants over huge sums of money (Matt 18:23–35; among the Synoptic evangelists, Matthew is notable for his love of large sums of money), or a king who is holding a wedding banquet for his son but who in the meantime kills all the invited citizens from a particular city that he proceeds to burn to the ground (Matt 22:2–10), or a merchant who entrusts massive amounts of money to his slaves while he is away on a long journey (Matt 25:14–30), or a nobleman who entrusts smaller amounts of money to his slaves while he journeys abroad to obtain royal power (Luke 19:11–27). Moreover, while it is conceivable that an affluent landowner might divide up his inheritance between his two sons simply because the younger son asks him to do so and that later on the landowner might restore the younger son to his former status after he had wasted his entire inheritance (Luke 15:11–32), such a drama would hardly qualify as an “everyday” event or an ordinary experience in the cycle of peasant life or nature. Even Mark’s parable of the Evil Tenants of the Vineyard (Mark 12:1–11), while certainly reflecting the socioeconomic conditions and conflict of the time, hardly portrays “everyday events” as it recounts multiple murders of slaves and a son, avenged in turn by the killing of all the tenants by the owner.35 Even in 1st-century Palestine, this did not happen every day—a fortiori in Antipas’ Galilee, where internal domestic affairs were relatively peaceful during his reign.36
2. Jesus’ parables are always fictitious narratives.37 Not always. It is hardly a fiction that, in 1st-century Palestine, sowers went out to sow seeds, that various amounts of the seed fell in less than optimum areas and so failed to yield fruit, while nevertheless—at least at times, in especially good years—a surprisingly abundant harvest would result (Mark 4:3–8 parr.). Granted, in this parable, as in many others, Jesus employs the common rhetorical technique of hyperbole, though whether the sower’s mode of sowing is unusual or the amount of the harvest incredibly huge continues to be disputed among scholars.38 But the basic story is hardly fictitious. If hyperbole autǭmatically turned a whole narrative into fiction, then most yearly reports to the faculty by university presidents and deans would qualify as fiction.
The same can be said for the parables of the Mustard Seed (Mark 4:30–32 parr.) and the Leaven (Matt 13:33 par.). Again, hyperbole is employed (at least in some versions: “smallest of all the seeds,” “it becomes larger than all plants and becomes a tree,” “three measures of flour”) to underscore a major theme—the contrast between small beginnings and large endings. But the basic story is exactly what happened and does happen quite often. This is all the more true of the Seed Growing by Itself (Mark 4:26–29). The streamlining of the story to emphasize that the seed grows by its own inherent dynamism (automate)—something the farmer can neither cause nor understand—explains the silence about the farmer’s activity in tilling and watering. Such obvious action by the farmer is not denied by the parable; it is simply ignored by the miniature story in order to underline what is at stake.
That all the other stories in Jesus’ parables are fictitious may be granted for the sake of argument. Yet we should note that, in making such a claim, scholars are asserting something that they cannot strictly prove. Indeed, some commentators suggest that, in the similitude of the plundering of the strong man by the stronger man or in the parable of the Evil Tenants, Jesus is alluding to recent events known to his audience.39 This is mere speculation, to be sure. But it does counsel caution when making claims that all of Jesus’ narrative parables are fictitious—even apart from those that deal with the ordinary cycles of sowing and growth. Such claims are indeed quite probable, but not, strictly speaking, demonstrable in every case.
3. Jesus’ parables are always subversive of traditional religious beliefs, upending them with surprise endings or, alternately, posing puzzling stories that resist any specific interpretation.40 At times scholars seem to imagine Jesus in the guise of a postmodern or deconstructionist critic intent on bewildering his students in a class on theory,41 or a Zen master helping his disciples to understand that there is nothing to understand in a given statement via discursive reasoning. Not only is this a prime example of projecting present-day academic life or pop-cultural trends back into ancient times and texts; more to the point, it is demonstrably false. For example, the L parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:16–21)—in which a prosperous farmer plans both future expansion and a life of ease, only to die that very night—is Jesus’ recycling of a traditional truth inculcated by OT sages and prophets, intertestamental literature, and Greco-Roman philosophy. One finds variations on the theme in Proverbs, Qoheleth, and Ben Sira. Indeed, Ben Sira makes a very similar point—though in the form of a wisdom saying rather than a parable—in 11:18–19 (cf. 29:11; 51:3).42 The only variation on the theme that Jesus introduces is the climax in which God directly addresses the rich man as a fool and announces his death “this very night,” thus providing an explicitly theological and eschatological note not present in the earliest sapiential forms of this OT tradition. Attempts to avoid the obvious conclusion that Jesus is simply recycling with variations a well-known Jewish sapiential and prophetic teaching involve either importing into the parable a reference to the kingdom of God (through the theme of the harvest, which is never explicitly mentioned) or substituting the version of the parable in CGT, which in my opinion is dependent on Luke’s version.43 Apart from these subterfuges, we have a clear case of a parable of the Synoptic Jesus that, far from peddling O. Henry surprise endings to subvert traditional religious expectations, actually affirms and enforces them. An “attack on [the traditional religious] world” this parable is not.
Examples could be easily multiplied, but I would suggest that, if one excludes the clever manipulations of modern critics, the parables of the Sower, the Seed Growing by Itself, the Mustard Seed, the Leaven, Matthew’s parable of the Two Sons, and Luke’s parables of the Barren Fig Tree, the Tower Builder, and the Warring King all play with traditional themes in witty and engaging ways but do not employ surprise endings that would deeply upset the expectations of fervent Jews nourished on their Scriptures and the intertestamental traditions found in Palestine at the turn of the era. Even the parables stressing the reversal of fortune by God’s action before or after death (e.g., the Rich Man and Lazarus) would encourage rather than discomfort those Jews who shared either the future eschatology of the Pharisees or a fortiori the apocalyptic hopes of such groups as the Qumranites. That there are parables with surprise endings—for example, the Workers in the Vineyard (Matt 20:1–16), the Good Samaritan, and the Prodigal Son—is not in dispute. But they do not typify all of Jesus’ parables. Indeed, I would even question whether they represent the majority of cases, especially once one realizes that mere hyperbole in an otherwise realistic story is not the same thing as a surprising, paradoxical ending that reverses all expectations.
F. THE PARABLES OF JESUS IN THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS
Thesis Six: The claim that the parables in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas represent an independent and indeed earlier and more reliable tradition of the parables of the historical Jesus is highly questionable. The question of whether the sayings in CGT that have Synoptic parallels are actually dependent, directly or indirectly, on the Synoptic Gospels emerged soon after the discovery of Thomas at Nag Hammadi in 1945.44 As anyone acquainted with books on the parables of Jesus surely knows, the debate continues to this day.45 The independence of Thomas has come to be championed by a nōtable group of North American scholars, though authors differ on whether a few individual sayings in Thomas might reflect dependence on the Synoptics. In certain quarters, Thomas’ independence is now taken for granted to such an extent that opposite views are hardly discussed at length.46 Instead, contrary voices tend to be quickly dismissed with little if any detailed analysis of the arguments about a particular logion. Consequently, serious engagement with scholars who challenge Thomas’ independence by means of a thorough analysis of individual logia is at best sparse.47
There is no need to repeat here my general arguments for questioning the early date and independence of CGT that I laid out in Volume One of A Marginal Jew.48 I would simply note that every time I have tested a saying from CGT during my research for the first four volumes of A Marginal Jew, comparison with the Synoptics has argued in favor of Thomas being secondary—be the dependence a direct literary one or indirect dependence by way of some Gospel harmony, a collection of sayings extracted from the Synoptics, or simply secondary orality (or perhaps a mix or all of these).49 But as we come to a study of Jesus’ parables, a more detailed approach to the question of Thomas’ dependence or independence is desirable. The practical problem I face in such an approach is that neither space nor the focus of A Marginal Jew allows for a study of all 114 Coptic sayings in the manner of scholars like Wolfgang Schrage, Michael Fieger, Reinhard Nordsieck, April D. DeConick, or Uwe-Karsten Plisch. Given the limitations of this fifth volume, I think that the best way to tackle the problem is to take a cross-section of test cases involving sayings material found in both Thomas and the Synoptics. Lest someone object that the results of these test cases are skewed because only certain Synoptic sources or only certain literary genres are treated, I will select my probes from all the Synoptic sources and from a variety of literary genres, not simply from parables.50 More specifically, to ensure that my findings are not distorted by drawing examples from only one stream of the Synoptic tradition, I will examine sayings from every Synoptic source: (i) the Marcan tradition (as redacted, in most cases, by Matthew and especially by Luke); (ii) Q; (iii) sayings found independently in both Mark and Q (referred to as “Mark–Q overlaps”); (iv) the special Matthean material (M); and (v) the special Lucan material (L). In addition, to ensure coverage of various genres, I will begin the test cases with examples of literary genres that lie outside the category of parable and then proceed to examples from Thomas’ parables that have parallels in the Synoptics.
At this point, one practical problem arises in regard to format and mode of presentation in this chapter. To include all the test cases within this list of seven unfashionable theses would create a gargantuan Chapter 37, with Thesis Six disproportionately longer and vastly more complicated than the other six theses combined. To avoid such an unwieldy format, I will present the detailed analysis of these test cases of Thomas and the Synoptics in the next chapter, Chapter 38. However, for the sake of the continuity of my main argument, as well as for the convenience of the reader, I will anticipate and summarize here the conclusions reached at the end of Chapter 38.51
In Chapter 38, I test fifteen Thomasine logia that have parallels in the Synoptics. The conclusion reached from testing each logion is that it is more likely than not that Thomas’ version displays signs of some sort of dependence on the Synoptic material. As already noted, the kind of dependence may well vary from saying to saying. The dependence may be direct or indirect, through literary dependence or secondary orality, through Gospel harmonies, catechetical summaries, or mere memorization, however faulty. One corollary from this conclusion is that Thomas is important not because it represents an early and independent source of Jesus’ sayings. Rather, Thomas is important because it furnishes a striking example of the reception history of the Synoptics in the 2d century. Thomas’ importance lies in the fact that (1) it displays abundantly the conflating tendencies seen in various patristic works of the 2d century (e.g., Polycarp, Justin Martyr, and the Didache), while at the same time (2) it points forward to the culmination of these conflating and harmonizing tendencies in Tatian’s Diatessaron.
To be sure, this examination of fifteen logia from Thomas does not autǭmatically resolve the problem of all the Thomasine sayings that have close Synoptic parallels (roughly half of the 114 logia in CGT). But the results of probing these fifteen sayings do shift the burden of proof in the debate. As a matter of principle, anyone approaching CGT for the first time would be obliged to remain completely open-minded about whether all of Thomas was directly or indirectly dependent on one or more of the Synoptics, or whether it was totally independent, or whether some logia were dependent while others were not. Thus, if one were starting from scratch, the burden of proof would be on anyone making any claim, one way or the other. But, after examining CGT 5, 31, 39, 14, 54, 16, 55, 47, and 99 outside the parable tradition, and sayings 20, 65, 66, 57, 72, and 63 inside the parable tradition, I reach the conclusion in Chapter 38 that each saying displays dependence on one or more of the Synoptics. Once this has been shown to be the case—in either the Greek fragments or the full Coptic text of Thomas—across a broad range of Synoptic sources and genres, the burden of proof necessarily shifts. For not only do the Thomasine logia that have been tested depend on the Synoptics. In addition, many of these Thomasine sayings evince a redactional hand with a clear tendency to conflate and/or abbreviate various forms of the Synoptics to produce the version in CGT. Moreover, the studies done by Christopher Tuckett, Charles Quarles, Jörg Frey, Simon Gathercole, Mark Goodacre and others have shown that this tendency extends far beyond the logia I have examined. Hence it becomes quite probable that whoever put the Gospel of Thomas together knew and used the Synoptic Gospels in his redactional work. This conclusion holds true even within the restricted compass of the Greek fragments of Thomas found in the Oxyrhynchus papyri.
It remains theoretically possible that now and then the redactor received into his composition an independent logion that he left untouched. But such a claim, made for a specific logion, must be proved, not just asserted or taken for granted on the basis of a supposed scholarly consensus. In the presence of a good number of logia that can be demonstrated with fair probability to be dependent on the Synoptics, I would maintain that the burden of proof shifts to anyone claiming independence. The default assumption should be dependence unless the opposite can be proved in a particular case.
To all this I would add a personal note from my experience of working for years on this material: I have yet to come across a single commentator on CGT who has proved convincingly that any one particular Thomasine logion with a Synoptic parallel is truly independent of the Synoptic tradition. Granted, a number of cases may well fall into the dreaded limbo of non liquet (not clear either way). But even here, I would claim that the results of the probes in Chapter 38 can rightly influence our judgment on these instances of non liquet. If—as is the case—we have a fair number of clear instances of Thomas’ dependence, witnessed in every Synoptic source and in many different literary genres, then a judgment of non liquet must remain just that. Such a judgment cannot be gently nudged by default or by a presumed academic consensus into the “independence” column. If anything, the multiple examples in Chapter 38 might incline us to presume that unclear cases are more probably products of dependence that have been heavily reworked by the Thomasine redactor. But if we are uncomfortable going that far, at the very least such cases must remain non liquet.
The upshot of Thesis Six (including by way of anticipation what will be demonstrated at length in Chapter 38) can be stated quite simply: it is highly questionable to invoke any parable in Thomas (or any other logion, for that matter) as an independent witness of Jesus’ sayings.52 In other words, the Thomasine logia cannot be used to claim that a particular saying attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels is authentic on the purported grounds that Thomas supplies us with multiple attestation from an independent source. Not being an independent source, Thomas offers no such multiple attestation.
It is now time to apply all that we have seen in this thesis to the larger question of the problem of the historical Jesus and his parables, which we will examine in Thesis Seven.
Thesis Seven: Relatively few of the Synoptic parables can be attributed to the historical Jesus with a good degree of probability. In other words, relatively few of the parables can meet the test of the criteria of authenticity that other sayings and deeds of Jesus are supposed to meet.53
I realize that this assertion flies in the face of a strong consensus among parable researchers. From Adolf Jülicher through Joachim Jeremias and C. H. Dodd to Norman Perrin, Robert Funk, and Klyne Snodgrass, scholars of various ideologies and faith commitments (or lack thereof) have been united in one unshakable article of faith: the parables provide the most sēcure way, the royal road, the easiest and most reliable access to the historical Jesus—or, at the very least, to the teaching of the historical Jesus.54 My simple and radical thesis is that this is not so, and endless repeating of the “royal road” mantra will not make it so.
As we explore the implications of Thesis Seven, we must distinguish carefully between two similar yet quite different claims: (1) the historical Jesus taught in parables; (2) the historical Jesus taught this particular parable (take your choice: the Sower in the Fields, the Good Samaritan, the Wheat and the Weeds, or whichever).
The first assertion—that Jesus taught in parables—is easily sustained, primarily by the criterion of multiple attestation of sources. Every Synoptic source—Mark, Q, M, and L—contains a number of narrative parables taught by Jesus. Indeed, every Synoptic source has one or more parables not present in any other Synoptic source. Moreover, every Synoptic Gospel claims, in one way or another, that Jesus regularly used parables to teach both his disciples and the crowds that followed him. That a popular Jewish prophet and teacher should use parables as part of his rhetorical repertoire coheres perfectly with what we know of the OT prophets before Jesus and the rabbinic teachers after him.55 Some critics also appeal to a type of argument from discontinuity: it is often claimed that Jesus’ parables have a distinct voice, tone, artistry, and literary genius that distinguish them from both OT and rabbinic parables. Whether this be true or not, such a claim rests more on individual literary (and theological) tastes and subjective aesthetic judgments than on the historically testable claims of multiple attestation and coherence. Personally, I prefer not to employ such an argument.
Even if we invoked no criterion beyond multiple attestation, that would be a sufficient argument for the basic thesis that the historical Jesus used parables in his teaching and was well known for doing so. The one caveat we should append to this firm assertion is that parables were not the only type of teaching method or discourse Jesus used. There is a danger of reducing Jesus simply to a poetic teacher who always spoke in dazzling metaphors and puzzling riddles. As I have shown at length in Volume Four of A Marginal Jew, Jesus the Jew also engaged in halakic debates about Torah and its proper observance, debates that demanded that he take precise positions on specific legal questions: for example, by prohibiting divorce and remarriage as well as oaths; by championing a reasonable, commonsense approach to sabbath observance (e.g., the legality of rescuing animals as well as humans in danger); and by ranking love of God and love of neighbor as first and second in the hierarchy of legal values. Reducing Jesus to a poet with a purely metaphorical mind-set hardly does justice to the complexity of this Jew’s teaching. If we may trust the general impression created by all the Synoptics, parables were an important and major part of Jesus’ teaching. Whether they were the most common form of Jesus’ teaching and what exactly was the proportion of parable teaching to other forms of Jesus’ teaching (e.g., his pronouncements on the Law) is something that we cannot know today, given the highly selective nature of the material preserved by the evangelists.
The problem is, once we descend from the general assertion that Jesus taught in parables to the particular judgment of whether this or that parable comes from Jesus, we are in serious trouble. One is reminded of the similar problem of dealing with Jesus’ miracles in Volume Two of A Marginal Jew. The general assertion that Jesus did startling things, things that he and his followers took to be miracles, was easily sustained by the criterion of multiple attestation, which included Josephus as well as all the Gospel sources. In contrast, determining that behind any one particular miracle story lay a startling event in the life of the historical Jesus—an event that he and/or his followers claimed to be miraculous—was quite a different and more difficult matter. All too often we were left with the honest but exasperating judgment of non liquet (not clear either way). I maintain that the same basic pattern holds when we come to examine parables. After all, by what criterion can we establish that this or that particular parable was spoken in some form or other by the historical Jesus?
The criterion of multiple attestation works for very few parables. As we will see, the Mustard Seed is a Mark–Q overlap, but such cases are rare among the parables. If one judges that the parable of the Great Supper and the parable of the Talents (or Pounds) are not examples of Q parables heavily redacted by Matthew and Luke, but rather examples of two parables that were preserved in the M and L special traditions, we would have two more cases of multiple attestation. If one counted Jesus’ saying about the strong man overcome by the stronger man (Mark 3:27 || Matt 12:29 || Luke 11:21–22) as a parable, we would have another example of a parable that was a Mark–Q overlap. However, in Mark and Matthew this saying takes up only a single verse, a fact that moves me to categorize it as a similitude rather than as a narrative parable.56 That said, this short list more or less exhausts candidates for multiple attestation.
Sometimes recent studies on memory, eyewitnesses, oral tradition, and oral performances in the ancient world are invoked to bolster an argument for the authenticity of the Synoptic parables.57 Such studies are welcome additions to NT research, but one may wonder what exactly they contribute to the question of the authenticity of a given parable. It is no doubt true that the parables in particular were told and retold and handed down for decades in the oral tradition, undergoing various permutations. Multiple oral performances would have been unavoidable, exercising both a creative and a conservative influence on the basic structure and content. Nevertheless, the hard truth is that we do not have 1st-century DVDs or smartphone downloads that preserve the living voice of such oral performances and transformations.58 All we have are the carefully composed literary documents called Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Mainstream source and redaction criticism point to Matthew and Luke’s dependence on Mark and on a hypothetical source labeled Q, along with individual units from special M and L traditions. To be sure, ongoing oral traditions remained available and may at times have influenced the authors of the written Gospels. But the influence of living oral tradition on the composition of the four canonical Gospels is something to be demonstrated in the individual instance, not simply asserted. Then, too, the influence of memory is not something to be restricted to oral composition and tradition. For instance, texts that were either heard or read repeatedly by a scribe would presumably remain in that scribe’s memory and might well exercise an influence if at a later date the scribe either authored or copied one of the Gospels. In my view, the proper understanding of the complexity of oral tradition and the influence of memory on both oral and written material enriches but does not invalidate the basic model created by form, source, tradition, and redaction criticism, including the two-source theory of Synoptic relationships. Such a model is sufficient, at least in most cases, for explaining the sources and relationships of the Synoptic parables.
Hence if one wishes to claim, for instance, that a Matthean or Lucan form of a particular Marcan parable is dependent not simply on Mark but also on some stray oral variant, then it is up to the scholar making that claim to substantiate it in the particular case. Vague, general appeals to folk memory and oral performances in ancient or nonliterate cultures can hardly decide the issue in the individual case.59 For example, a parable created in the mid-30s of the 1st century a.d. by a person who had been a follower of Jesus in the late 20s would no doubt undergo many oral performances and be remembered in different ways before it was written down in the Synoptic Gospels. The multiple performances it had undergone between the mid-30s and the mid-70s—multiple performances that we can only surmise, not test or verify—would prove nothing about whether it originated with the historical Jesus or with one of his disciples. To take two specific examples of parables probably created by early Christians: in the following chapter, we shall see that the parable of the Wheat and the Weeds is most likely a creation either of Matthew himself or of the tradents of his M tradition.60 Relatively few critical scholars attempt to argue that this parable (and some would add the Matthean parable of the Ten Virgins) goes back to the historical Jesus. In Chapter 39, I will argue that the parable of the Good Samaritan is a pure creation of Luke the evangelist. In other words, when it comes to this preeminently Lucan parable, it is difficult to make a case for any form of the parable existing before the evangelist, to say nothing of tracing it back to Jesus. If this be true of two well-known and often-cited parables, what positive arguments can be brought forward to prove that some other parable lacking multiple attestation is not a creation either of the early tradents of the Jesus tradition or of one of the evangelists? Even such a staunch defender of the reliability of the Jesus tradition in the Gospels as Birger Gerhardsson maintains that “early Christianity felt itself entitled to formulate new narrative meshalim of the Kingdom, . . . meshalim created in the spirit of the master and according to the same lines as his own meshalim.”61
At this point, we can appreciate the pivotal importance of deciding that CGT does not represent an early and independent source of Jesus’ teachings in general and of the parables in particular. If Thomas were independent and early, we would have multiple attestation (or greater multiple attestation) for the parables of the Sower, the Mustard Seed, the Wheat and the Weeds, the Rich Fool, the Great Supper, the Evil Tenants, the Pearl of Great Price, the Leaven, the Lost Sheep, and the Treasure in the Field. But as I will argue at length in Chapter 38, this is most likely not the case. I am in principle open to the possibility that, in an individual instance, the version of a parable preserved in CGT represents an independent and early form—if someone should mount a convincing argument for that position. To be honest, though, having worked through all the Synoptic parables in detail with CGT at my side, I have yet to find any such convincing argument. One can understand, though, why scholars from Jeremias to Crossan, so different in their christologies or lack thereof, should rally around the independence of Thomas. With it, we gain multiple attestation and a good argument for authenticity for nine parables that otherwise would lack it (the Mustard Seed is safe as a Mark–Q overlap). Without Thomas, these nine are in the same source-critical boat as most other parables.
Worse still, not only does the criterion of multiple attestation not apply; one must say the same thing about the criterion of embarrassment.62 If anything, the parables of Jesus have proven to be the most well-known and well-loved parts of the Gospels, even for nonbelievers. Various audiences in the Gospels are at times shocked or perturbed by what Jesus says, but almost never is a narrative parable the cause of such shock. The stock reaction to parables (when a reaction is noted) is puzzlement or a request for an explanation. Needless to say, an ingenious modern critic is free to use his or her skill to interpret a parable in an embarrassing or shocking way, but then the next critic is equally free to offer a different and nonshocking interpretation. Thus was it ever with parables. It makes no sense for modern interpreters to celebrate the indeterminacy, the ever-open range of possible meanings of parables, only to turn around and insist that this particular parable must have this particular offensive meaning. The history of interpretation shows that people who don’t like one interpretation of a parable will simply see another in it. But what of those relatively few cases where shock value seems indisputably present because some unsavory character is extolled in the parable? The problem with this type of argument is that the prime example of such clear shock value is the parable of the Good Samaritan—precisely the parable that, I will argue in Chapter 39, comes neither from Jesus nor from the early tradents but from Luke himself. Jesus was hardly the only religious figure capable of making shocking or disturbing statements in the 1st century a.d. From Paul’s epistles to the Revelation of John, we can find many disturbing or repellent statements in the NT canon that do not go back to the historical Jesus.
What about the criterion of discontinuity? Some commentators, like Bernard Brandon Scott—perhaps realizing the difficulty of arguing for the authenticity of an individual parable taken in isolation—have argued preemptively for an a priori presumption of authenticity for the Synoptic parables in general, at least for their originating structure if not their exact wording. Scott is to be congratulated for recognizing the difficulty of demonstrating the authenticity of the Synoptic parables and for facing this problem squarely. However, the first part of Scott’s argument in favor of authenticity will surprise anyone who knows the parabolic tradition of the Jewish Scriptures. Scott claims that “the parable genre does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. . . .”63 He then bases this claim on a shaky foundation: the “short, narrative fictions” in the Jewish Scriptures “do not use the distinctive formula ‘it is like.’” But the same is true of many of Jesus’ parables: for example, the Sower, the Evil Tenants, Matthew’s parable of the Two Sons, Luke’s parable of the Two Debtors, the Good Samaritan, the Importunate Friend at Midnight, the Rich Fool, the Barren Fig Tree, the Tower Builder and the Warring King, the Lost Coin, the Prodigal Son, the Dishonest Steward, the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Widow and the Unjust Judge, and the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.
Indeed, this list reminds us that Luke in particular, more often than not, does not use any introductory formula employing the language of “is like.” Sometimes, in fact, a parable is not even labeled a parabolē. Other times, one evangelist will use an “is like” formula while another does not; see, for instance, Matthew’s introduction to the Great Supper (Matt 22:2: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king . . .”), compared with Luke’s (Luke 14:16: “A man gave a great supper . . .”). If it were not for Matthew’s penchant for using “is like” formulas to introduce parables (see, e.g., most of the parables in his parable discourse of 13:3–52), we might not even think that such a formula was all that typical of Jesus’ parables. Matthew himself, though, does not use the introduction invariably, as can be seen from the very first parable in chap. 13, the Sower (vv 3–8). To be sure, one might argue that the “is like” formula is implicit in the very act of using a short narrative as a comparison, but the same can be said of the various parables in the OT. Reality and labels for reality must not be confused. Nathan’s parable of the poor man and his ewe lamb is no less a parable for lacking the label māšāl or the formula “is like” in its immediate context.
Are there any other ways to “finesse” the argument from discontinuity to establish a presumption that the bulk of the Synoptic parables go back to the historical Jesus? One might take refuge in the more subjective, esthetic, artistic, or romantic argument that Jesus’ parables display much greater literary genius and fresh insight than any Jewish parables before or after him. But at this point we are into the realm of de gustibus.64 Would the ancient rabbis have agreed with this esthetic assessment? Indeed, even today, would every Orthodox Jewish scholar who is an expert on rabbinic parables agree with this Christian esthetic judgment? I doubt it.65
Another approach to the argument from discontinuity is to point out that other writings in the NT and indeed in other Christian works of the 1st and 2d centuries do not contain parables similar to those of Jesus.66 The problem with this argument is that it tells us nothing about the creativity of the “key players” handing on the tradition of the Synoptic parables in the first decades after a.d. 30. Here we should pause for a moment and ask ourselves: “What are we implying when we claim that a particular parable in the Synoptic Gospels goes back, in some shape or other, to the historical Jesus?” We are implying that one or more “earwitnesses” of Jesus’ public ministry heard this parable, remembered it, and repeated it in the circle of disciples and in the early church as part of Jesus’ teaching. This parable continued to be repeated—with no doubt various permutations in “oral performances”—down to the time that it was written down in one of the Synoptics (if not already in some earlier written source like Q or a pre-Marcan collection).67
Thus, to claim the authenticity of any parable in the Synoptics is to claim that there was a chain or group of oral tradents who preserved, repeated, and handed down Jesus’ authentic parables for three or four decades. Are we to suppose that the original disciples who spent two or three years listening to, absorbing, and repeating Jesus’ parables never learned anything from him about how to construct a striking parable? Were all the original disciples as stupid and dense as Mark makes them out to be? Did the early Christian bearers of the tradition, who received the parables from the “earwitnesses” and repeated them in oral performances for decades, likewise learn nothing about composing parables in imitation of the Master? The problem with the whole argument from discontinuity, when applied to parables, is that we are dealing with a group of tradition-bearers that necessarily existed—if any of the parables is authentic—but about whom we know next to nothing. In particular, we know nothing about how creative they were and to what degree they composed parables in imitation of the ones they received from Jesus or Jesus’ “earwitnesses.”
Here, then, is a basic problem with the argument from discontinuity, when applied to parables: it works quite well when we compare Jesus the Spinner of Parables to Paul or other non-Synoptic authors of the NT—none of whom, of course, wrote a Synoptic Gospel or a Jesus-like parable. But this argument from discontinuity does not work with the anonymous tradents of the Synoptic oral traditions, especially the parable traditions. Someone so adept at preserving and passing on the tradition of Jesus’ parables may also have been quite adept in imitating that tradition. We must keep this possibility constantly before us when we ask: “Does this particular parable go back to Jesus?”
If, then, neither multiple attestation nor discontinuity applies to the bulk of Jesus’ parables, what criterion does? Not many commentators would argue that the criterion of Jesus’ death applies—though some of the more barbed parables may have annoyed his adversaries and aggravated the tension between Jesus and the Jerusalem authorities. Still, one can hardly imagine the legal accusation placed above Jesus’ head on the cross reading, “Jesus of Nazareth Spinner of Parables.” Pilate couldn’t have cared less.
As for the criterion of coherence (or continuity), this criterion can highlight the fact that Jesus’ use of parables makes sense when placed within the grand Israelite tradition that stretches from Nathan the prophet to the rabbis of the Talmud and beyond. But this tells us nothing about the authenticity of any individual Synoptic parable.
Thus, we are left with a surprising and disconcerting conclusion: apart from the relatively few parables that enjoy multiple attestation, the historical critic is hard pressed to demonstrate that a particular parable goes back to the historical Jesus. Actually, a careful reading of many of the large commentaries on NT parables will expose this embarrassing secret, papered over by vague, sweeping, and unsubstantiated claims. The attentive reader will note how often the question of authenticity is answered with the blanket observation that “various interpreters across the spectrum have concluded that . . . [a particular parable] is authentic at its core,”68 or, at the very least, that “a parable of this kind would certainly have been possible in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.”69 Alternately, we are told that “there is no really good reason to exclude the parable . . . from the tradition coming from the proclamation of Jesus.”70 Or we are assured that “in regard to the question of its [a particular parable’s] authenticity, there seem to be no challenges of note.”71 Indeed, at times this curious argument from silence is wedded to esthetic sensibility: “The authenticity of this parable is rarely questioned, especially because of its artistry and power. . . .”72
If I keep emphasizing the importance of the judicious use of criteria rather than grand generalizations when it comes to assessing the authenticity of individual Synoptic parables, I ask the reader to consider, in one concrete case, the results of waiving the consistent use of criteria. Klyne Snodgrass’s monumental tome, Stories with Intent, is a mine of information, both of ancient languages and texts and of modern commentators and debate. I have often profited from consulting it. Yet something is seriously wrong with a method that, in the end, has the historical Jesus, the early Christian tradition, and any given evangelist practically collapse into the same person. For the ultimate upshot of Snodgrass’s approach is that not a single parable in all three Synoptic Gospels is firmly rejected as inauthentic. How does Snodgrass arrive at this critical cul de sac? Amid the many problems of Snodgrass’s approach, two stand out: (1) obvious contributions of the evangelists are played down by minimalizing the redactional traits clearly present in a parable; and (2) the authenticity of any parable is presumed unless the opposite can be proven (thus reviving the old burden-of-proof ploy).73 I readily admit: the use of the criteria of authenticity can be dull and plodding, sometimes yielding uncertain results or the annoying conclusion of non liquet. But consider the alternative that is all too common: most books on the parables, not unlike Snodgrass’s, arrive at the conclusions that the authors have predetermined from the beginning of the project. And those conclusions usually include the key claim that most if not all of the Synoptic parables go back—at least in their “core” or “kernel”—to the historical Jesus. With parable research, as with Jesus research in general, the wish is often father of the thought—and of the book.
In the end, I am under no illusion that my seven unfashionable theses will suddenly reverse the course of American parable research. With parables as with almost any other area of research in a university, a given field of expertise all too easily develops into an echo chamber that produces a self-reinforcing consensus. If nothing else, though, I hope that at least my unfashionable theses will encourage the reader to step outside the echo chamber of parable research and ask the basic question that has been the basso continuo of this chapter: How do we know that this or that parable comes from the historical Jesus? At the end of this chapter and of these seven theses, my reply is simple: In many cases, we don’t. Let me emphasize once again: this is not to claim that I can often prove the opposite, that is, that this or that parable definitely does not come from Jesus. Rather, as was often the case with the miracle stories in Volume Two, we are left with a galling but honest non liquet (not clear either way). All the consensus to the contrary proves nothing.
But are there—as has been intimated in this chapter—at least a few parables that can claim one or more criteria of historicity and so authenticate themselves as Jesus’ own creations? There are a precious few, but they need to be identified by a careful examination of the full list of Synoptic narrative parables, in order to select the relatively small number of promising candidates. Hence, after examining at length the question of the dependence or independence of Thomas in Chapter 38, we will turn to that list of parables in Chapter 39 in order to ferret out the candidates “most likely to succeed” in the contest for the prize of authenticity. Understandably, we might want to move on immediately to examining that intriguing list of possibly authentic parables, but a major question stands in our way. As we shall see, the criterion of multiple attestation of independent sources will prove to be the most important of the criteria when it comes to evaluating the historicity of any given parable. Hence, before we can move to that evaluation, we must be clear on one vital point: do the parables in CGT provide attestation from a source independent of the Synoptic parables? Or are they dependent on one or more of the Synoptic Gospels, and so useless for satisfying the criterion of multiple attestation? It is to that preliminary, difficult, but unavoidable question that we turn in Chapter 38.
1. Even an introductory bibliography that offers merely a representative sampling of major books and articles on the parables of Jesus must go on at great length. To avoid taking up a huge amount of space at the beginning of the endnotes of this chapter, I have placed the introductory bibliography on the parables at the end of this volume as an appendix. The full bibliographical information about books and articles cited in this chapter can be found there.
2. Anyone writing a book on the parables of Jesus faces a problem of labeling at the very beginning of the project. How should one designate or title the individual parables? Some exegetes complain that the traditional titles (e.g., “the Prodigal Son,” “the Dishonest Steward”) do not always capture what is at stake in a given parable. Yet present-day attempts to substitute more accurate labels have not met with general acceptance. Naturally, the new labels reflect the (sometimes idiosyncratic) interpretation of the individual commentator, and in the end we are left with a bewildering pile of competing titles for a single parable. So as not to confuse my audience, many of whom are not professional academics, I will as a rule abide by the traditional titles of the parables. The style adopted in this volume will use the word “parable” in lowercase, followed by the specific title capitalized: so, e.g., the parable of the Evil Tenants of the Vineyard, the parable of the Good Samaritan.
3. C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (London: Nisbet, 1935 [original edition]; London: Collins [Fontana], 1961 [revised edition]) 16.
4. For some of the philosophical problems involved in reader-response and/or socioeconomic approaches to the parables, see Simon Beck, “Can Parables Work?,” Philosophy & Theology 23 (2011) 149–65.
5. This point should be kept in mind especially by those commentators pursuing “reader response” or “audience response” criticism. In the case of the parables, even a small audience gathered to hear a parable of Jesus for the first time could react with different personal responses. Imagine, for instance, a Christian family in a small house church at the end of the 1st century, hearing the parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke’s Gospel for the first time. The kind but firm father might hear one message, his elder obedient son might hear another, and his younger restless son might hear still a third. Perhaps the mother of the two sons might wonder why there was no mother in the parable. One can easily imagine a similar diversity of reactions to the parable when (and if) Jesus actually spoke this parable for the first time to a Palestinian crowd during his public ministry. Nevertheless, this diversity of reactions does not mean that the parable was open to any and every interpretation that a modern exegete might formulate. In the case of the historical Jesus, a crowd of 1st-century Palestinian Jews would have gathered to listen to an Elijah-like prophet who claimed to work miracles and to be the final prophet sent to Israel to herald the coming of God’s kingdom. All this would create a firm framework and boundaries for the crowd’s diverse reactions.
6. Arland J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus. A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2000) 3 n. 6. One problem with any such comparison of the number of Synoptic parables suggested by various commentators is that some authors will count a parable only once, presuming, for example, that we are dealing with Matthean and Lucan redactions of the same Q parable, while other authors will see two different versions of the same parable from two different sources (e.g., M and L), while still other authors will see two different parables sharing certain common themes. Prime examples of this type of contested parable are the parable of the Talents/Pounds and the parable of the Great Supper. But such special cases are not numerous enough to account for the wide range of numbers found in parable commentators. Rather, a major factor in the variant counts is that what some authors label a metaphorical statement or a similitude other authors label a parable. Hence the root problem is not only one of source criticism but also and more importantly one of form criticism. Then, too, some commentators include all Synoptic parallels in their counts.—Commendable is the detailed attempt of Birger Gerhardsson (“The Narrative Meshalim in the Synoptic Gospels. A Comparison with the Narrative Meshalim in the Old Testament,” NTS 34 [1988] 343–44) to list all the narrative parables contained in each Gospel (Gerhardsson operates with a distinction between “aphoristic meshalim” and “narrative meshalim”) and then to sort out the parables according to which parables are shared by all three Gospels, which are shared by two Gospels, and which are unique to one Gospel. He counts a total of five parables in Mark, twenty-one in Matthew, and twenty-nine in Luke, adding up to fifty-five parables in all. Three parables appear in all three Synoptics: the Sower, the Mustard Seed, and the Evil Tenants of the Vineyard. Matthew and Luke have another seven (or eight) parables in common, while Mark and Luke have one (Mark 13:32–37 par., the Watchful Servant, which I consider not a parable but a similitude surrounded by direct exhortations to the disciples listening to the eschatological discourse). Peculiar to Mark is one parable (the Seed Growing by Itself), to Matthew 10 or 11, to Luke 17 or 18. As we shall see in Chapter 39, my count of parables that are unique to each source will differ slightly, since Gerhardsson counts as narrative parables some texts that I consider similitudes (e.g., the Children Playing in the Marketplace). Also, there are some curious judgments in Gerhardsson’s categorization of the parables: e.g., he places the Defendant on His Way to the Judge in his Lucan list of parables (Luke 12:58–59), but omits the parallel (Matt 5:25–26) from his Matthean list because he claims that the latter is “not a narrative mashal” (p. 344 n. 2). All this reminds us that a certain element of subjectivity is inevitable in any list of the Synoptic parables that attempts to be both comprehensive and discriminating as to sources.
7. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 22.
8. Zimmermann et al. (eds.), Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, 28. Even the compendium’s understanding of the German term Parabel is capacious, since it lists eighteen “parables” in the narrow sense in John’s Gospel. Moreover, it tabulates forty-one parables in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas and fifteen in the Agrapha. (For a brief overview of the disagreement among scholars on the number of parables in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, see David W. Kim, “Where Does It Fit? The Unknown Parables in the Gospel of Thomas,” Bib 94 [2013] 585–95.) The authors of the various essays in this compendium tend to see parables where I would see similitudes or simply statements that employ metaphors, similes, and other tropes or figurative language.
9. For basic philological information, see Karl-Martin Beyse, “māšal I; māšāl,” TDOT 9 (1998) 64–67; Heinrich Gross, “māšal I, etc.,” 68–71; Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Study Edition; 2 vols.; London/Boston/Cologne: Brill, 2001) 1. 647; Friedrich Hauck, “parabolē,” TDNT 5 (1967) 744–61; idem, “paroimia,” ibid., 854–56. For a list of occurrences of the verb māšal and the noun māšāl in the MT and parabole in the LXX, see Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 570–74.
10. So complicated is the matter that not all philologists would recognize two different verbs sharing the consonants mšl, but the presentation in my main text represents the common view. For a brief history of the scholarly debate, see Katrine Brix, “Erste Annäherung einer Hermeneutik des māšāl in alttestamentlichen Schriften mit Überlegungen zur Rezeption dieses Begriffes in den neutestamentlichen Evangelien,” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 13 (2009) 128–29.
11. Some authors try to reduce the two ideas of “proverb” and “comparison” to one, claiming that every proverb, at least implicitly, involves a comparison. But one need only read a few chapters of the Book of Proverbs to see that this is not so.
12. Sir 50:27–29 forms the subscription of the author as he concludes his work, summing up the book’s content and purpose. A transcription of the Hebrew text of 50:27–28 (MS B recto) can be found in Pancratius C. Beentjes, The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew (VTSup 68; Leiden/New York/Cologne: Brill, 1997) 90. The key phrase at the beginning of v 27 is mwsr śkl wmwšl, which the LXX translates as paideian syneseōs kai epistēmēs.
13. Hence, in the case of meanings like “an object of mockery” or “a byword,” māšāl can mean a man, phenomenon, action, or occurrence, and not a particular rhetorical expression; see Gerhardsson, “The Narrative Meshalim in the Synoptic Gospels,” 340 n. 5.
14. I owe this way of approaching Jesus’ parables to Harvey K. McArthur, who argued for this mode of defining the parables of Jesus in a seminar presentation at the Columbia University New Testament Seminar back in the 1970s. He (along with his coauthor Robert M. Johnston) also employs this criterion of narrativity in his treatment of rabbinic parables; see McArthur and Johnston, They Also Taught in Parables. Rabbinic Parables from the First Centuries of the Christian Era (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990) 98–99; cf. Charles W. Hedrick, “The Parables and the Synoptic Problem,” New Studies in the Synoptic Problem (Christopher M. Tuckett Festschrift; BETL 239; ed. Paul Foster et al.; Leuven/Paris/Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2011) 322. Admittedly, the distinction between a simple metaphor (or simile), a similitude, and a narrative parable is clear in some situations and quite unclear in others. No one would call the parable of the Prodigal Son a mere simile or metaphor, and no one would call Matt 6:24 (“No one can serve two masters; for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will be attached to the one and look down on the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon”) a complete narrative parable. In between these two extremes, commentators will often disagree in applying labels. For instance, Joachim Jeremias (The Parables of Jesus [London: SCM, 1963 (English translation of 6th German edition, 1962; 1st English edition, 1954)] 247) lists the Budding Fig Tree (Mark 13:28–29) as a parable (he explicitly states that he is excluding metaphors and similes from his list); similarly, John Dominic Crossan, In Parables. The Challenge of the Historical Jesus (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1973) 138. In contrast, Snodgrass (Stories with Intent, 576) lists the Budding Fig Tree as a similitude, distinguished from a parable; accordingly, he does not give it separate consideration in his encyclopedic work. Likewise, Hultgren (The Parables of Jesus) mentions Mark 13:28–29 only in passing (e.g., p. 425, where he calls it a “parabolic saying”) and gives it no separate commentary as a parable. (One might observe in passing that, while Mark 13:28 uses the word parabolē, the sense here seems to be “the lesson taught by this comparison using the fig tree.”) Obviously, I cannot presume to issue a decree determining terminology for all future commentators on the parables, especially since there has been an explosion of studies on and debates over the proper meaning of metaphor (see, e.g., the discussion of the proper definition of metaphor in David E. Aune, The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christian Literature and Rhetoric [Louisville/London: Westminster/John Knox, 2003] 301; cf. the discussion of various theories of metaphor in Susan E. Hylen, “Metaphor Matters: Violence and Ethics in Revelation,” CBQ 73 [2011] 777–96, esp. 780–84). I simply note here my own method of classification. In my usage, a metaphor involves a direct equation or identification of two realities (expressed by words, phrases, or sentences) that are not literally the same but that are being identified for rhetorical purposes, without comparative words such as “like” or “as”: “my love is a red, red rose.” A simile makes the element of comparison explicit by using the word “like,” “as,” or similar vocabulary (e.g., the verbs “to liken,” “to compare”): “my love is like a red, red rose” (with a bow to Scots songs and Robert Burns). Applying this to the Gospels, if we take the statement of Matt 5:14a by itself (“you are the light of the world”), we have a brief metaphorical statement. If, however, we “draw out” that simple metaphor by further elucidation or concrete images (as in Matt 5:15, “nor do they light a lamp and place it under a measuring vessel but rather on a lamp stand, and it shines on all in the house”), the simple metaphor has become a similitude (a “stretched-out” metaphor or simile). The similitude can then be stretched out even further by an explicit application (as in Matt 5:16, “so let your light shine before human beings, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven”)—what later Jewish scholars would call a nimšāl. However, in my view, Matt 5:14a,15–16 does not rank as a (narrative) parable because (1) the metaphor has not been stretched out so far as to create a story with at least an implicit beginning, middle, and end; and because (2) the audience is directly addressed not only in the nimšāl (v 16) but also in the very core of the metaphor itself (“you are the light of the world”). In a narrative parable, the audience is rather drawn into a story world where characters other than they themselves act or are acted upon in the framework of a (at least implicit) plot. Hence a metaphor/simile or similitude in which the audience that Jesus is addressing is explicitly present (and possibly acting) does not qualify as a parable, because such speech does not create a narrative universe into which the audience is drawn to watch or experience a story involving others. All these observations make clear what I require for a true parable of Jesus: a parable is a metaphor or simile stretched out into a whole narrative into which the audience can be drawn, a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end (at least in miniature). Even if this definition is granted, opinions may differ on individual passages. For example, the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Unforgiving Servant, and the Evil Tenants of the Vineyard all clearly tell a story with a plot line; they are all narrative parables. I would argue that a story in miniature can be found in the parables of the Leaven and the Mustard Seed; something happens and change takes place between the beginning and end of the miniature narrative. Hence I classify these mini-stories as parables, although other scholars (e.g., Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 576) list them as similitudes instead. On the other hand, I think that the one-verse comparison of Jesus’ exorcisms to the binding of a strong man (Mark 3:27 || Matt 12:29) is a metaphor stretched out into a similitude. I do not consider it a story with a beginning, middle, and end and hence a parable. Note how Mark 3:27d simply repeats 3:27b, leaving us with the brief statement that “no one entering the house of the strong man can plunder his goods unless he first bind the strong man.” In my opinion, this is not enough for a narrative parable. (One might argue that the alternate and expanded two-verse version in Luke 11:21–22 just barely crosses the threshold into the category of parable, though I doubt it.) Moreover, a similitude, however concrete and lively, cannot qualify as a parable if it simply displays a static situation that does not develop and so does not create an implicit plot line. For this reason, I would categorize the two-verse or one-verse depiction of the Children Playing in the Marketplace (Matt 11:16–17 || Luke 7:32) as a similitude rather than a parable. Needless to say, in these borderline cases, scholars may and do honestly disagree. I simply wish to make clear to the reader that, in what follows, I use the word “parable” in the sense of a narrative parable, as distinct from a metaphor/simile or a similitude. Readers of the works of Dodd will recognize that my usage is close to the one that he maps out in The Parables of the Kingdom, 16–17. I readily admit, though, that in previous volumes of A Marginal Jew, I often adopted the nomenclature of the scholars with whom I was interacting at the time.—Those who read theological German will notice that my category of a metaphor or simile is roughly equivalent to the German Bild or Bildwort, my category of similitude to the German Gleichnis, and my category of parable to the German Parabel. However, German usage varies from author to author, and one may wonder whether every author is completely consistent in his or her usage. In particular, while Gleichnis may serve to designate the specific category of similitude, it is often used as well as an umbrella term for both similitudes and (narrative) parables. In this whole question of parable terminology, one of the most influential German NT exegetes of the 20th century was Rudolf Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (FRLANT 29; 8th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970 [originally 1921]; with Ergänzungsheft edited by Gerd Theissen and Philipp Vielhauer, 4th ed., 1971) 179–222. (By comparison, Martin Dibelius has had only minor impact on parable research and terminology, perhaps because he gives only brief consideration to the similitudes and parables in his famous form-critical work, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums[6th ed.; ed. Günther Bornkamm, with addendum by Gerhard Iber; Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1971] 249–58). Reflecting and building on the heritage of Adolf Jülicher, Bultmann distinguishes Bildwort (metaphorical statement), Gleichnis (similitude), and Parabel (narrative parable). Within his treatment of Bildwort, he also distinguishes between Metapher (metaphor) and Vergleich (simile). Also echoing Jülicher, Bultmann distinguishes between the category of parable and the category of Beispielerzählung (example story), though he admits that the latter is closely related to the former. For Bultmann, an example story differs from a parable because the element of metaphor is missing in the former. As is the case with many other exegetes, Bultmann finds all the Synoptic example stories within the special Lucan material: the Good Samaritan, the Rich Fool, the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. In my own treatment, I will not employ the separate category of example story for a number of reasons: (1) Some commentators dispute the existence of this category; see, e.g., Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 13–14, with the literature cited there. (2) Various other parables might be classified as example stories as well: e.g., Matthew’s parable of the Unforgiving Servant. As some commentators observe, the difference between a regular parable and an example story seems to be one of degree rather than of essence. (3) As noted earlier, all four of the stories commonly designated as example stories come from the special Lucan material and stand out because of their strong Lucan style and/or theology (some would detect the influence of Pauline theology as well). This raises serious suspicions among some exegetes as to the origin of the Lucan example stories. As will become clear in my treatment, I doubt that any of these four example stories can be shown to go back to the historical Jesus.—On the question of the prehistory of the category of example story (prior to Jülicher) and of Jülicher’s own shift in his understanding of this category, see Jeffrey T. Tucker, Example Stories. Perspectives on Four Parables in the Gospel of Luke (JSNTSup 162; Sheffield: Academic Press, 1998) 45–70.
15. The noun parabole (“parable”) occurs 17x in Matthew, 13x in Mark, and 18x in Luke, for a total of 48x. In most cases, the noun refers to a narrative parable (or in some debatable instances to a similitude), though other scattered meanings occur (e.g., “aphorism,” “proverb,” “riddle,” “instruction using an analogy”). In my view, this preponderant use of parabolē in the Synoptics to refer to narrative parables justifies using the English word “parable” as shorthand for “narrative parable” unless a specific context indicates otherwise. Here I differ in my usage from that of Birger Gerhardsson, “The Narrative Meshalim in the Old Testament Books and in the Synoptic Gospels,” To Touch the Text (Joseph A. Fitzmyer Festschrift; ed. Maurya P. Horgan and Paul J. Kobelski; New York: Crossroad, 1989) 294. Cases where parabolē clearly means something other than a narrative parable are in the definite minority in the Synoptics; they include Mark 3:23 (an analogy within a riddle or rhetorical question); Mark 7:17 || Matt 15:15 (an aphorism functioning as a halakic ruling); Mark 13:28 || Matt 24:32 || Luke 21:29 (similitude of the fig tree); Luke 4:23 (proverb); 5:36 (analogy); 6:39 (analogy in rhetorical question); 14:7 (analogy as part of practical advice, though parabolē in 14:7 may be pointing forward to the parable that actually begins in v 16). These scattered cases can hardly be tucked under the single rubric of “aphorism.” The only other occurrences of parabolē in the NT are the two found in Heb 9:9 and 11:19, where the sense is “sign,” “symbol,” or “type,” in keeping with the author’s allegorical interpretation of the OT. For a list of the occurrences of parabolē in the NT, see Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 567–69. The noun paroimia occurs in the sense of “proverb” in 2 Pet 2:22 and in the sense of an obscure figure of speech in John 10:6; 16:25 (bis),29.
16. On the examples in Judges, Samuel, and Kings, see Jeremy Schipper, Parables and Conflict in the Hebrew Bible (New York: Cambridge University, 2009) 23–110. In dealing with the OT material, I follow Schipper’s usage in classifying fables (“short stories that employ animals and plants as central characters”) as a type of parable; see p. 14. Inevitably, scholars will disagree on how many narrative parables there are in the Jewish Scriptures. Gerhardsson (“The Narrative Meshalim in the Old Testament Books and in the Synoptic Gospels,” 290–91), for example, counts five clear cases: Judg 9:7–15; 2 Sam 12:1–4; 2 Kgs 14:9; Isa 5:1–6; and Ezek 17:3–10 (all of which I accept). Gerhardsson (p. 291 n. 7) also grants that there are a number of “borderline cases,” in which he includes 2 Sam 14:5–7; Prov 9:1–6,13–18; Isa 28:23–29; Ezek 15:1–8; 16:1–43; 19:2–9,10–14; 23:1–19; 24:3–14. Some of these cases are debatable because the metaphors and the reality to which the metaphors point are mixed together in the narrative (see, e.g., the cases in Ezekiel 19, 23, and 24).
17. To be precise, the stories of Nathan and the woman of Tekoa, while actually fictional (like many parables), are initially presented to David as real cases (though Schipper [Parables and Conflict, 42–46, 63–66] thinks otherwise). For the lengthy debate over how and to what extent the details of Nathan’s narrative about the poor man’s ewe map onto David’s adultery with Bathsheba and his indirect murder of Uriah, see the review of research and the intriguing suggestion offered by Joshua Berman, “Double Meaning in the Parable of the Poor Man’s Ewe (2 Sam 12:1–4),” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 13 (2013) Article 14, 17 pages (online).
18. The Hebrew word nimšāl is not used as a noun in this technical sense in the rabbinic literature of Mishna and Talmud; the noun first appears in medieval Hebrew. This is noted by Daniel Boyarin (p. 127 n. 4) in a review essay (“Midrash in Parables”) published in the Association for Jewish Studies Review 20 (1995) 123–38; the book under review is David Stern’s Parables in Midrash (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1991); see p. 13. However, nimšāl as a verb form introducing an interpretation or explanation of a parable (“it is compared to . . . ,” “it is like . . .”) is regularly found in the rabbis.—The question of nimšāl highlights a related point. In the narrative parables of classical prophecy, for all their riddling quality, the speaker wishes his immediate audience to understand the thrust of what he is saying, not to remain in the dark—a result that would only frustrate a parable’s judicial dimension. The notion that parables are not understood by the audience and indeed are not meant to be understood does not belong to the type of parable spoken by Nathan or Isaiah. The enigmatic element within the story exists precisely to “tease the mind into active thought” so that the meaning of the parable is at last grasped. The prophet’s goal is not obfuscation and permanent frustration.
19. It is odd that Gerhardsson (“The Narrative Meshalim in the Synoptic Gospels,” 343) omits this instance from his list of OT narrative mĕālîm; on the prophet’s parable in 1 Kgs 20:39–42, see Schipper, Parables and Conflict, 74–92.
20. As indicated by my use of the traditional divisions of Tanak, I am basically following the books of the Jewish Scriptures as they now lie in the Jewish canon. It would take us too far afield in this thesis to raise further hypothetical questions: e.g., what the original form and length of Nathan’s parable were in the oral tradition and whether the redactor of the Deuteronomistic History might have abbreviated an originally longer parable.—In what follows in the main text, I will be pursuing the special meaning of māšāl as narrative parable (often with allegorical elements) that is found in the literary prophets. This focus is by no means intended to deny the presence of the more sapiential meanings (e.g., proverb, taunt), which the prophets also use; see Brix, “Erste Annäherung,” 130–33. This is a healthy reminder that there is no high and impenetrable wall of separation between sapiential and prophetic traditions.
21. On the importance of Ezekiel in this development and on the similarity of his narrative parables to those of the Synoptic Jesus, see Brix, “Erste Annäherung,” 135–36; cf. Otto Eissfeldt, Der Maschal im Alten Testament (BZAW 24; Giessen: Töpelmann, 1913) 14–17.
22. Note that this example from Ezekiel gives the lie to the claim that it is of the very nature of allegory to obfuscate and mystify (so the followers of Jülicher). The initial verses (16:2–3) make clear that the allegory refers to the sinful history of Jerusalem (representing the whole people). From the start, the entire allegory is presented as Yahweh’s direct address to Jerusalem, with the various stages of Israel’s history quite clear to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures or the traditions standing behind them. Nor is the allegorical mode of Ezekiel’s fiery rhetoric dispensable and disposable once the message has been understood. No bare-bones recitation of the brute facts of Israel’s history would or could carry the rhetorical power and convicting force of Ezekiel’s allegory. Allegory may indeed at times possess a mystifying or riddle-like quality (so Ezek 17:1–10, prior to the allegorical explanation in 17:11–21), but such mystification is not of the essence of allegory.
23. On the dual locution in Ezek 17:2, see Andreas Schüle, “Mashal (māšāl) and the Prophetic ‘Parables,’” Hermeneutik der Gleichnisse Jesu (WUNT 231; ed. Ruben Zimmermann with Gabi Kern; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 2008) 205–16, esp. 210–11. Possibly diēgēma was chosen by the translator because it allowed the Greek to imitate the play on words of the Hebrew in Ezek 17:2 by combining a Greek verb and its cognate noun (diēgēsai diēgēma). In theory, allēgoreō and allēgoria might also have been employed for such a play on words. In fact, though, allēgoreō and allēgoria never occur in the LXX, and we have firm attestation of their use only from the 1st century B.C. onward. On the larger question of the Greek text of Ezekiel, especially its homogeneity, see Leslie John McGregor, The Greek Text of Ezekiel. An Examination of Its Homogeneity (SBLSCS 18; Atlanta: Scholars, 1985).
24. Ezekiel’s use of allegory would be an opportune place to make some observations about the complex phenomenon called allegory (from the Greek words allos, “other,” and agoreu, “to speak in public”). However, the phenomenon is indeed so complicated that it needs to be treated at some length. Hence, rather than disrupt the flow of the argument at this point, I will discuss the question of allegory in a separate Excursus at the end of this chapter.
25. Even the Book of Psalms is not without an analogous usage. In Psalm 49, the psalmist struggles with the riddle of the prosperity of the wicked. He describes the problem he ponders as a māšāl and a ḥîdâ (v 5). To be sure, the psalmist speaks primarily in terms of wisdom and insight (v 4), but he also seems to claim an ability to solve the riddle in virtue of a revelation from God, a revelation that suggests that the righteous one will in the end be taken up to God.
26. The only time in Hermas that parabolē approaches the older scriptural type of metaphorical narrative is in Man. 11:18 (= 43:18), but there it is a matter of simple similitudes or figurative comparisons. For the occurrences of parabolē in the Apostolic Fathers, see Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 575. Curiously, while N. T. Wright (Jesus and the Victory of God [Christian Origins and the Question of God 2; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996] 174–82, esp. 177) correctly sees that Jesus’ use of parables reflects the prophetic tradition of Israel, he unfortunately elides the classical prophetic tradition with the Jewish apocalyptic tradition around the turn of the era. The fact of the matter is that Jesus’ parables connect form-critically with Nathan, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, not with the allegorical visions-plus-interpretive-angel found in 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, or 2 Baruch.
27. In the phrase “the prophetic tradition of the Jewish Scriptures,” I am referring to the full range of prophecy in Tanak, including the proto-apocalyptic of the authors behind certain parts of Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Isaiah 24–27. I would also include in this prophetic tradition the apocalyptic Book of Daniel, even though the later definitive ordering of the Jewish canon places it among the Writings rather than among the Latter Prophets. (On this, see Konrad Schmid, “The Canon and the Cult: The Emergence of Book Religion in Ancient Israel and the Gradual Sublimation of the Temple Cult,” JBL 131 [2012] 289–305, esp. 297–98.) Jesus the eschatological prophet represents in particular the eschatological and/or apocalyptic stream of Jewish prophetic tradition. As I have indicated in Volume Two of A Marginal Jew, I think that it is best to classify Jesus’ eschatological utterances as eschatology tinged with apocalyptic motifs and imagery, as distinct, e.g., from the full-blown apocalypses of 4 Ezra or 2 Baruch.
28. It is difficult to understand Bernard Brandon Scott’s claim that Jesus’ parables are unique because we find no such narrative parables in the OT; see his Hear Then the Parable (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989) 13, 63. This claim seems to fixate on the fact that the narrative parables in the Former Prophets are not labeled mĕālîm and to ignore the fact that such narrative parables are present—whatever their label or lack thereof—and provide a real analogue to Jesus’ narrative parables. P. Kyle Mc-Carter (II Samuel [AYB 9; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984] 304) holds that we might call Nathan’s story a “juridical parable,” though he admits that some would object to the word “parable” from a formal point of view. McCarter himself goes on to speak of the story as “Nathan’s juridical parable” (p. 305). As for Isaiah’s Song of the Vineyard (Isa 5:1–7), Joseph Blenkinsopp (Isaiah 1–39 [AYB 19; New York: Doubleday, 2000] 206) states emphatically that Isaiah’s poem expresses itself “in a manner analogous to the parable of Nathan (2 Sam 12:1–14) and some of the gospel parables. . . .” In light of these opinions, I think that to conclude to the absence of a reality simply from the absence of a particular label for that reality is a strange form of nominalism. As Schipper (Parables and Conflict, 6) emphasizes, we should not restrict the designation “parable” to those relatively few cases in the Jewish Scriptures where the noun māšāl is explicitly used to designate a short story that functions as a comparison: “. . . a short story does not need to carry a specific label to qualify as a parable.” Consequently, the presence of narrative parables in the OT renders invalid the argument that we can presuppose that the narrative parables in the Gospels do come from the historical Jesus because neither the OT nor the rest of the NT contains narrative parables comparable to those of Jesus (criterion of discontinuity). I will come back to this point in Thesis Seven.—In a separate article (“From Petition to Parable: The Prophet’s Use of Genre in 1 Kings 20:38–42,” CBQ 71 [2009] 264–74), Jeremy Schipper makes the intriguing observation (p. 264 n. 1) that, within the Jewish Scriptures, “parable,” understood as a short narrative with a comparative function, can be found in songs, fables, dreams, and taunts; hence Schipper prefers not to call narrative parables a distinct genre. While one can appreciate this problem of categorization within the vast sweep of the Jewish Scripture, the problem does not arise, as a practical matter, within the relatively narrow compass of the Synoptic Gospels. There “parable,” understood as a short narrative spoken by Jesus with a comparative function, does stand out as a distinct literary genre amid the various genres found in the Synoptics (e.g., miracle story, dispute story, similitude, prayer, beatitude, infancy narrative, and passion narrative).
29. See, e.g., Ben Witherington I, Jesus the Sage. The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994); and Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar (eds.), The Five Gospels (New York: Macmillan, 1993), where, after a discussion of his parables, Jesus is laconically described (p. 32) as “the laconic sage.” To be fair, Witherington (Jesus the Sage, 158–59) acknowledges that in the OT “narrative meshalim were not characteristic of the sages. . . . Rather, they seem to have been a prophetic phenomenon, perhaps one may say a prophetic modification of a Wisdom form of utterance. . . .” In the end, though, Witherington prefers to subsume Jesus’ parables into an overall understanding of Jesus as “a Jewish prophetic sage,” insisting that “sage” is “the most appropriate and comprehensive term for describing Jesus.” Accordingly, when Witherington offers a book-length treatment of Jesus as prophet (Jesus the Seer [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999]), parables play only a passing role in the portrait, mostly in debate with N. T. Wright’s understanding of Jesus’ use of metaphorical language (see, e.g., pp. 271–75). When one considers that narrative parables never occur in OT wisdom books, but rather in the historical and especially the prophetic books of the OT, and when one adds to this the consideration that Jesus’ parables usually (though not always) serve as a medium for the eschatological message of the final prophet sent to Israel, it seems artificial to try to tuck Jesus’ parables under the ill-fitting cloak of the wisdom tradition. Yet that is precisely what John Dominic Crossan does in his The Historical Jesus (San Francisco: Harper, 1991), notably in chap. 12, “Kingdom and Wisdom” (pp. 265–302). Doing away with all future-prophetic eschatology in Jesus’ message, Crossan necessarily places Jesus and his parables in the sapiential tradition.
30. All this presupposes a much longer treatment of the reasons for Jesus’ execution, which will be treated in the final volume of A Marginal Jew. But to state my position ever so briefly: Jesus was put to death because as an eschatological prophet he heralded the advent (and at the same time the mysterious presence) of the kingdom of God, formed an inner group around himself to be a prophetic core of this coming kingdom, attracted large crowds of followers by his miracles and his teaching, and finally enacted in symbolic-prophetic actions the dissolution of the old order and the coming of God’s kingdom in the street theater of the triumphal entry and the cleansing of the temple, right under the noses of Pilate and Caiaphas during a major pilgrimage feast while Jerusalem was flooded with fervent Jews. It was such prophetic-symbolic actions of an eschatological prophet who was also hailed by followers as the Son of David, all enacted in David’s ancient capital at Passover, that precipitated the final crisis.
31. For a recognition of the prophetic tradition in Jesus’ parables that also wishes to affirm the sapiential dimension, see Schüle, “Mashal (māšāl) and the Prophetic ‘Parables,’” 205–16. Let me be clear: my fourth thesis does not mean to deny that there are sapiential motifs within Jesus’ parables; such motifs can be found in the parables of OT prophets as well. But the primary model for understanding Jesus as speaker of parables is prophet, not wisdom teacher.
32. The attentive reader will no doubt see in this description of Jesus’ parables the influence of the classic definition of Dodd (The Parables of the Kingdom, 16): a parable of Jesus “is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” However, certain considerations, which I will be treating in the main text under Thesis Five, keep me from simply adopting Dodd’s definition as my own: (1) As a matter of fact, not every Synoptic parable deals with nature or common life (think of the parables narrating extraordinary actions of kings). (2) Not every parable is notably vivid or strange (think of the generic, schematic parables of the Sower or the Seed Growing by Itself). (3) I prefer to restrict the term “parable” to what Dodd (p. 17) calls a “parable proper,” i.e., a narrative parable, a metaphor or simile elaborated into a story, rather than just a metaphor elaborated into a picture by the addition of some details, i.e., a similitude.—It is unfortunate that we have such a limited amount of sayings of John the Baptist that may be judged to be authentic (for evaluation of the Baptist material in the Gospels, see A Marginal Jew, 2. 27–56). John is presented in the Q material (Matt 3:7–10 || Luke 3:7–9) as freely using metaphorical speech (“brood of vipers,” “bring forth fruit,” “raise up children unto Abraham from these rocks”). He also stretches out metaphors into similitudes (so Matt 3:10 par., the ax laid to the root of the tree). Indeed, one might argue that in Matt 3:12 par. the similitude is stretched out into a mini-parable: “His winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will clean his threshing floor, and will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with inextinguishable fire.” One might like to indulge in speculation about whether the prophet Jesus learned something about parable-spinning from the prophet John, but we lack enough material even for speculation.
33. Birger Gerhardsson (“Illuminating the Kingdom: Narrative Meshalim in the Synoptic Gospels,” Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition [ed. Henry Wansbrough; JSNTSup 64; Sheffield: Academic Press, 1991] 266–309) is perhaps the most notable of those parable commentators who try to make all of the narrative parables speak of the kingdom of God (see pp. 283–91). The problem with this approach is that the “wide umbrella-term [p. 283] ‘The Rule/Kingdom of God/Heaven’” has to be stretched extremely far (indeed, to the bursting point) to include all of the Synoptic parables. The unintended result of Gerhardsson’s claim is that the rubric “kingdom of God” loses all specific meaning. Only when “kingdom of God” is generalized to the point of a vague religious platitude can it include equally, along with the Marcan and Matthean parables, all the special Lucan parables, especially the so-called example stories. It is perhaps telling that, when Gerhardsson claims in his essay, “The Narrative Meshalim in the Old Testament Books and in the Synoptic Gospels,” that all the narrative parables have the one homogeneous theme of the kingdom of God, he allows that the Good Samaritan may be an exception (p. 299). Other critics may find other exceptions.
34. This element of a definition of “parable” is at least implied by the part of Dodd’s classic definition that reads “a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life . . .” (The Parables of the Kingdom, 16, emphasis mine).
35. It may be significant, though, that the parables that contain kings, nobles, rich merchants, and affluent landowners, who are often portrayed as involved in extraordinary actions or events, tend to cluster in the special M and L parables, while common events in everyday village life are found more in Marcan and Q parables. Is this possibly an index of the stages of the parable tradition, or even an index of which parables come from Jesus himself?
36. See A Marginal Jew, 1. 282–83.
37. The element of fiction in the definition of “parable” is emphasized by Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 8, 35–42. I readily grant that no parable presents or claims to present a report of a unique historical incident. That is not the point at issue in the main text.
38. On the various opinions among scholars, see Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 166–67, with the literature cited there. In the debate over whether sowing would normally precede plowing in the agricultural practice of early 1st-century Palestine (and hence how realistic the parable of the Sower is), see in particular Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 11–12; idem, “Palästinakundliches zum Gleichnis vom Sämann (Mark IV.3–8 par),” NTS 13 (1966–67) 48–53; K. D. White, “The Parable of the Sower,” JTS 15 (1964) 300–307; Philip B. Payne, “The Order of Sowing and Ploughing in the Parable of the Sower,” NTS 25 (1978–79) 123–29.—On the larger question of hyperbole in the Synoptic parables, see David Seccombe, “Incongruity in the Gospel Parables,” TynBul 62 (2011), 161–72.
39. Moreover, there is the special case of Luke’s version of the Talents/Pounds (Luke 19:12–27), where many commentators see an allusion to the story of Archelaus (one of the sons of Herod the Great) attempting in 4 b.c. to obtain the title of king from Caesar Augustus in the face of opposition from a delegation of Jews and Samaritans. On this hypothesis, see Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus, 285; Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 537. This parable, along with the question of the reference to Archelaus, will be taken up in Chapter 40.
40. An example of this approach can be found in Funk et al. (eds.), The Five Gospels, 30–32; oddly, Wright (Jesus and the Victory of God, 179) tends to agree with his adversaries in the Jesus Seminar on this one point. What is remarkable about the Seminar’s whole enterprise is that characteristics of Jesus’ teaching and activity that need to be established by detailed analysis of the sources and application of criteria of historicity are instead proclaimed a priori as criteria for judging authentic material—a parade example of begging the question.
41. For an exposition of deconstructionism as applied to parables, see Patrick J. Hartin, “Angst in the Household: A Deconstructive Reading of the Parable of the Supervising Servant,” Neot 22 (1988) 373–90; idem, “Disseminating the Word: A Deconstructive Reading of Mark 4:1–9 and Mark 4:13–20,” Text and Interpretation. New Approaches in the Criticism of the New Testament (ed. P. J. Hartin and J. H. Petzer; NTS 15; Leiden: Brill, 1991) 187–200; a similar approach can be seen in John Dominic Crossan’s Cliffs of Fall. Paradox and Polyvalence in the Parables of Jesus (New York: Seabury, 1980).
42. Other broader parallels, pointing out the fleeting nature of life and its enjoyment, the danger of trusting in riches, the limited satisfaction they bring, and/or the judgment God passes on the arrogance of the rich, can be found in such disparate texts as Qoh 2:1–26; 4:8; 5:10–19 (ET: 5:10–20); 6:2; Job 31:24–32; Psalms 37; 39; 49; 73; Prov 3:9–10; Isa 22:13; Jer 9:22 (ET: 9:23); Hos 12:8–11; Sir 5:1–10; Wisd 15:7–12; 1 Enoch 97:8–10; cf. 94:7–11; Seneca, Epistulae morales 101.2–5; De consolatione ad Helviam 10.6–10. Clearly, Jesus is using in the Rich Fool a well-known theme in the prophetic and sapiential literature of Israel as well as other nations. Hence, the parable of the Rich Fool, along with the other parables I group with it in the main text, does not fit Wright’s profile of Jesus’ parables as apocalyptic allegory conveying secret messages to his followers while being cryptic to outsiders (Jesus and the Victory of God, 179–80). Wright formulates this profile as part of his strategy to create a presumption ab initio that the Synoptic parables are all authentic Jesus material, since the only intelligible Sitz im Leben they could have is the public ministry of Jesus. Wright reasons that since Jesus’ parables were apocalyptic allegories conveying secret messages unintelligible to outsiders, there was no reason why the early church should create such parables, since “the secret was [now, in the time of the church] an open one” (p. 180). Like many other arguments for presuming from the start that Gospel traditions are historically reliable (see, among others, Martin Hengel and Richard Bauckham), this one cannot stand the test of a detailed examination of particular cases. As I will argue in Chapters 38 and 39, parables like the Good Samaritan and the Wheat and the Weeds are most likely the creations of the evangelists or of tradents of the L and M traditions respectively. Once this position is established, a universal presumption for the authenticity of any and every parable falls. The question of the authenticity of each parable must be judged on its own merits.
43. For the argument in favor of this position, see the detailed treatment of the parable of the Rich Fool in Chapter 38.
44. Here I follow the date that is supported by James M. Robinson, “From the Cliff to Cairo,” Colloque international sur les textes de Nag Hammadi (Québec, 22–25 août 1978) (Bibliothèque Copte de Nag Hammadi, Section Etudes 1; ed. Bernard Barc; Quebec: Les presses de l’université Laval; Louvain: Peeters, 1981) 21–58, esp. 29. However, while this date still seems to be generally accepted, the precise circumstances of the discovery remain murky. Robinson’s own telling of the story has varied over time, and various scholars have put forward different hypotheses concerning the historical origins of the codices and the actual manner of their discovery. For one possible scenario (along with a strong critique of some of Robinson’s claims), see Nicola Denzey Lewis and Justine Ariel Blount, “Rethinking the Origins of the Nag Hammadi Codices,” JBL 133 (2014) 399–419; similar criticisms are voiced by Mark Goodacre, “How Reliable Is the Story of the Nag Hammadi Discovery?,” JSNT 35 (2013) 303–22.—As we begin our discussion of the Gospel of Thomas, a note about terminology is in order here. I employ the phrases Gospel of Thomas or simply Thomas as “umbrella” terms to refer to a Christian literary work of the 2d century A.D. that has been preserved for us in two major forms: (1) the Greek fragments preserved in the Oxyrhynchus papyri, specifically P.Oxy. 1, P.Oxy. 654, and P.Oxy. 655 (which are not all parts of the same Greek manuscript); and (2) the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, of which only one copy is preserved, namely, in Tractate 2 of Codex I of the Nag Hammadi codices discovered in 1945. The Coptic Gospel of Thomas contains (according to the count of the modern editors) 114 sayings, though with some lacunae. The abbreviation that I use in Volume Five of A Marginal Jew for the phrase “the Coptic Gospel of Thomas” is CGT, often with the number of a saying (= logion) following. Most likely, CGT is a translation of a Greek text (the original language of composition), though the fragments preserved in the Oxyrhynchus papyri evince some differences in wording and order from CGT. For a detailed description of the three Oxyrhynchus papyri containing sayings of Thomas, see Larry Hurtado, “The Greek Fragments of the Gospel of Thomas as Artefacts,” Das Thomasevangelium. Entstehung–Rezeption–Theologie (BZNW 157; ed. Jörg Frey, Enno Edzard Popkes, and Jens Schröter; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2008) 19–32; cf. Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Thomas. Introduction and Commentary (Texts and Editions for NT Study 11; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2014) 4–8 (for Gathercole’s treatment of the Coptic manuscript and a comparison between the Greek and Coptic texts, see pp. 9–24). For a brief introduction to the papyri, see A Marginal Jew, 1. 124–25, and the literature cited there. For the minority view that the original form of Thomas was written in Syriac, see Nicholas Perrin, Thomas and Tatian. The Relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and the Diatessaron (Academia Biblica 5; Leiden/Boston/Cologne: Brill; Atlanta: SBL, 2002) passim; a strong defense of original composition in Greek is given by Gathercole, ibid., 91–102. One conclusion that results from a comparison of the Greek fragments with CGT is that one should perhaps allow for stages of tradition and redaction, as well as for variations in different manuscripts of the work. However, barring further manuscript discoveries, theories about such stages or the range of variants must remain mere speculation; on this point, see Gathercole, ibid., 24–34. Citations of or passing references to the Gospel of Thomas in later Christian writers of the patristic period can be found in “The Greek Fragments,” an appendix by Harold W. Attridge in Nag Hammadi Codex II, 2–7 (NHS 20 and 21; 2 vols.; ed. Bentley Layton; Leiden: Brill, 1989) 1. 103–9; cf. Gathercole, ibid., 35–90. I use the adjective “Thomasine” (i.e., “referring to the Gospel of Thomas”) to refer to the text, content, theology, or author(s) of either of the two forms of the text. One final point: when I speak of the Gospel of Thomas in Volume Five without further qualification, I am always referring to the work described here. In other words, I never use the phrase “the Gospel of Thomas” or “Thomas” without further qualification to refer to other ancient works that bear the name of Thomas, such as the apocryphal gospel called the Greek Infancy Gospel of Thomas (on which see A Marginal Jew, 1. 115 and 145 n. 17).
45. For a review of literature and contending positions on the Gospel of Thomas, see Nicholas Perrin, “Recent Trends in Gospel of Thomas Research (1991–2006): Part I, The Historical Jesus and the Synoptic Gospels,” Currents in Biblical Research 5 (2007) 183–206 (note the lengthy bibliography on pp. 199–206). For a collection of essays presenting different approaches to the problem of Thomas and the NT, see Das Thomasevangelium. Entstehung—Rezeption—Theologie (BZNW 157; ed. Jörg Frey, Enno Edzard Popkes, and Jens Schröter; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2008). The essay by Jörg Frey (“Die Lilien und das Gewand: EvThom 36 und 37 als Paradigma für das Verhältnis des Thomasevangeliums zur synoptischen Überlieferung,” pp. 122–80) offers in its first part (pp. 122–47) a helpful review of research, especially because it considers not just selected authors’ positions but also their presuppositions and implicit hermeneutical projects. For other surveys that also raise methodological questions, see Stephen J. Patterson, The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1993), 1–16; Reinhard Nordsieck, Das Thomas-Evangelium (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2004) 7–30; April D. De-Conick, The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation (London: Clark, 2007) 2–24; Nicholas Perrin, Thomas, the Other Gospel (Louisville/London: Westminster/John Knox, 2007) 1–69; Uwe-Karsten Plisch, The Gospel of Thomas (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2008) 9–36; Michael Labahn, “The Non-Synoptic Jesus: An Introduction to John, Paul, Thomas, and Other Outsiders of the Jesus Quest,” Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus (4 vols.; ed. Tom Holmén and Stanley E. Porter; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2011) 3. 1933–96, esp. 1976–84; Edwin K. Broadhead, “The Thomas-Jesus Connection,” ibid., 3. 2059–80; Christopher W. Skinner, What Are They Saying about the Gospel of Thomas? (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2012).
46. Frey (“Die Lilien und das Gewand,” 122–80) observes (p. 136) that the influence of such scholars as Helmut Koester and James M. Robinson in championing the independence of Thomas has led in some circles to a new “standard critical orthodoxy” (borrowing a phrase from Christopher Tuckett) that is hardly less dogmatic than the traditional view of the priority of the canonical traditions. Perrin (“Recent Trends,” 196) detects a certain “gridlock” on questions of dating and sources.
47. For examples of authors who question Thomas’ supposed independence of the Synoptics, see the articles by Charles L. Quarles, “The Use of the Gospel of Thomas in the Research on the Historical Jesus of John Dominic Crossan,” CBQ 69 (2007) 517–36; Simon Gathercole, “Luke in the Gospel of Thomas,” NTS 57 (2011) 114–44. More recently, whole books have taken up the argument against Thomas’ independence of the Synoptics; see in particular Gathercole, The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas (SNTSMS 151; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2012) 127–224; idem, The Gospel of Thomas. Introduction and Commentary, 176–84; Mark Goodacre, Thomas and the Gospels. The Case for Thomas’s Familiarity with the Synoptics (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2012). The various publications of Gathercole and Goodacre seem to have put the “independence party” on the defensive. The lively debate among major protagonists on both sides is mirrored in a special issue of JSNT 36 (2014) 199–293 (the March fascicle). Questions about the general approach and detailed arguments of Gathercole and Goodacre are raised by John S. Kloppenborg, “A New Synoptic Problem: Mark Goodacre and Simon Gathercole on Thomas” (pp. 199–239); Nicola Denzey Lewis, “A New Gnosticism: Why Simon Gathercole and Mark Goodacre on the Gospel of Thomas Change the Field” (pp. 240–50); Stephen J. Patterson, “Twice More—Thomas and the Synoptics: A Reply to Simon Gathercole, The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas, and Mark Goodacre, Thomas and the Gospels” (pp. 251–61). Replies to the questions and objections raised in these essays are given by Simon Gathercole, “Thomas Revisited: A Rejoinder to Denzey Lewis, Kloppenborg and Patterson” (pp. 262–81); and Mark Goodacre, “Did Thomas Know the Synoptic Gospels? A Response to Denzey Lewis, Kloppenborg and Patterson” (pp. 282–93). Amid the many different views expressed by the first three authors in this fascicle, one senses an ebbing of the automatic presumption in favor of the independence of the Thomasine logia with Synoptic parallels, a presumption that was once the opinio communis among North American scholars. A much earlier attempt to argue at length for the dependence of Thomas on the Synoptics was made by the monograph of Michael Fieger, Das Thomasevangelium (NTAbh 22; Münster: Aschendorff, 1991). Unfortunately, Fieger’s book suffers from a very heavy dependence on the still earlier monograph of Wolfgang Schrage, Das Verhältnis des Thomas-Evangeliums zur synoptischen Tradition und zu den koptischen Evangelienübersetzungen (BZNW 29; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1964). Nevertheless, to accuse Fieger of plagiarism, as Plisch does (The Gospel of Thomas, 16 n. 19), seems unduly harsh.
48. A Marginal Jew, 1. 124–39.
49. Christopher Tuckett (“Thomas and the Synoptics,” NovT 30 [1988] 132–57) entertains the possibility of Thomas knowing not all three Synoptic Gospels but rather a single harmonized text (p. 157). He makes the further intriguing suggestion that a “post-Synoptic” source might explain the order of sayings as also “post-Synoptic.”—One must remember, amid all the many methodological problems involved in the arguments for or against Thomas’ dependence on the Synoptics, that an a priori problem with the theory of Thomas’ independence is that “it can only ever be provisional” (Gathercole, “Luke in the Gospel of Thomas,” 116). The reason for this is that it is in principle extremely difficult, if not nigh impossible, to prove non-use of a text in the ancient world, to say nothing of proving that an ancient author did not know an earlier text. In contrast, an author’s use of a prior text (and hence his or her knowledge of that prior text) is in principle verifiable, however difficult it may be in a given case. To be sure, the nature of Thomas as a collection of free-floating logia, lacking a larger narrative context, does make verification much more difficult than, for example, the verification of the dependence of certain Matthean pericopes on their Marcan parallels.
50. Certain monographs focus on a particular subset of Thomasine logia. For examples, a study that restricts itself to the sayings of Thomas containing parables, aphorisms, and metaphors that deal with the kingdom of God and that are parallel to material in Synoptic sayings can be found in Jacobus Liebenberg, The Language of the Kingdom and Jesus. Parable, Aphorism, and Metaphor in the Sayings Material Common to the Synoptic Tradition and the Gospel of Thomas (BZNW 102; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2001).
51. Granted this solution to the problem of orderly presentation, I ask the reader to excuse a certain amount of repetition of material in both Thesis Six (here in Chapter 37) and Chapter 38. The repetition is necessary to ensure that each unit will be coherent and intelligible when read separately. Thus, Thesis Six in Chapter 37 summarizes the results reached at the end of Chapter 38, while the beginning of Chapter 38 will repeat some introductory material from Thesis Six.
52. At the end of his powerful and convincing treatment of “Thomas, the New Testament and the Historical Jesus” (Chapter 11 in his The Gospel of Thomas. Introduction and Commentary, 176–84), Gathercole states: “As scholarship currently stands . . . , the Gospel of Thomas can hardly be regarded as useful in the reconstruction of a historical picture of Jesus.” Anyone wishing a brief summation of arguments demonstrating that Thomas is neither earlier than nor independent of the Synoptic Gospels could hardly find a better digest of decades of scholarship and debate than this chapter. Gathercole’s own work has especially highlighted the influence of both Matthew and Luke on a significant number of Thomas’ logia; see, e.g., ibid., 178–80, where Gathercole concludes with typical restraint (p. 180): “As a result, a view of the independence of Thomas from the Synoptics is difficult to entertain.”
53. For an overview of the criteria proposed in historical Jesus research, see A Marginal Jew, 1. 167–95.
54. Snodgrass (Stories with Intent, 565) speaks for many: “Everyone admits that the parables are the surest source we have of Jesus’ teaching.” Present-day examples of such confidence can easily be multiplied, especially among exegetes of a conservative tendency; see, e.g., Greg W. Forbes, “The Parables,” The Content and Setting of the Gospel Tradition (ed. Mark Harding and Alanna Nobbs; Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2010) 366–68. But even more critical scholars, while exploring one or another aspect of the ministry of the historical Jesus, will almost automatically presume the authenticity of the parables that they employ to demonstrate their positions; see, e.g., Michael Wolter, “Jesus as a Teller of Parables: On Jesus’ Self-Interpretation in His Parables,” Jesus Research: An International Perspective. The First Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research, Prague 2005 (ed. James H. Charlesworth with Petr Pokorný; Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2009) 123–39; similarly, but perhaps with a greater sense of the problem involved, Rudolf Hoppe, “How Did Jesus Understand His Death? The Parables in Eschatological Prospect,” ibid., 154–69, esp. 158–59. A good deal of this confidence can be traced back to Adolf Jülicher (Die Gleichnisreden Jesu [2 vols.; Freiburg: Mohr, 1888, 1889 (reprint published by Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1910; reprinted as one volume by Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1963)]), who, while acknowledging the permutations introduced by the Christian tradition and the evangelists, nevertheless held that (p. 11) “we find no basis for denying the genuineness of the Gospel parables in general; on the contrary, we are compelled to attribute to them a relative authenticity; almost without exception they have a genuine kernel that goes back to Jesus himself. This principle hardly seems to need a defense . . .” (the translation of the German text is my own). Indeed, Dodd begins his classic The Parables of the Kingdom with the ringing affirmation (p. 13), “The parables are perhaps the most characteristic element in the teaching of Jesus Christ. . . . They have upon them, taken as a whole, the stamp of a highly individual mind. . . . Certainly there is no part of the Gospel record which has for the reader a clearer ring of authenticity.” Jeremias (The Parables of Jesus, 11–12) concurs: “The student of the parables of Jesus . . . may be confident that he stands upon a particularly firm historical foundation. The parables are a fragment of the original rock of tradition . . . in reading the parables we are dealing with a particularly trustworthy tradition, and are brought into immediate relation with Jesus.” Although more recent authors seek to nuance these claims with references to multiple oral performances, the authentic voice of Jesus, or the originating structure of a parable, the parables remain the most trusted source for knowing the teaching of the historical Jesus. For example, while admitting the lengthy process of oral and written transmission and reinterpretation that lies between Jesus and our written Gospels, Norman Perrin (Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976] 3) maintains that “the parables of Jesus were so distinctive that in broad structural outline they survived the subsequent process of transmission very well . . . [so that] the original form and thrust of the parables have not proven difficult to reconstruct.” While John R. Donahue seeks rather the meaning of the parables within their respective Gospel contexts, he begins his quest with this comment about past parable research (The Gospel in Parable [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988] ix): “For the past century the parables have served as the royal road to the life, teaching, and self-understanding of Jesus.” Perhaps reflecting the many different perspectives of a large working group, the Jesus Seminar, under the leadership of Robert W. Funk, expressed more diffidence. Yet, in the end, this highly skeptical seminar (witness the final results of their deliberations in The Five Gospels) proved more positive about the parables than about most Gospel material. In its separate and initial report on the parables, The Parables of Jesus. Red Letter Edition (ed. Robert W. Funk, Bernard Brandon Scott, and James R. Butts; Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1988), the Jesus Seminar put five parables (six versions) in the “undoubtably Jesus said something like this” category, eighteen parables (twenty-eight versions) in the “Jesus probably said something like this” category, ten parables (fourteen versions) in the “ideas contained [in these parables] are close to his own” category, and eleven parables (twelve versions—but only four of the eleven parables are found in the Synoptics; the rest come from the NT Apocrypha or patristic writings) in the “Jesus did not say this” category.
55. For a comparison between the parables of Jesus and those of the later rabbis, see Catherine Hezser, “Rabbinische Gleichnisse und ihre Vergleichbarkeit mit neutestamentlichen Gleichnissen,” Hermeneutik der Gleichnisse Jesu (WUNT 231; ed. Ruben Zimmermann with Gabi Kern; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 2008) 217–37. Other works that engage this topic include Clemens Thoma and Simon Lauer, Die Gleichnisse der Rabbinen (Judaica et Christiana 10, 16, 18; Bern: Lang, 1986); Peter Dschulnigg, Rabbinische Gleichnisse und das Neue Testament (Judaica et Christiana 12; Bern: Lang, 1988); Brad H. Young, Jesus and His Jewish Parables (New York: Paulist Press, 1989); McArthur and Johnston, They Also Taught in Parables; Alan Appelbaum, The Rabbis’ King-Parables. Midrash from the Third-Century Roman Empire (Judaism in Context 7; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2010), esp. his appendix, “Jesus’ King-Parables,” 271–96. I mean no slight to the great rabbinic tradition of parables when I do not engage in a detailed discussion of their relation to Jesus’ parables. If one were concerned with a synchronic comparison of literary forms, traits, and motifs in various parables across the wide sweep of Israel’s history and literary tradition, it would be necessary to bring together OT parables, those of Jesus, and those of the Tannaitic and Amoraic rabbis (indeed, one could continue tracing the Jewish tradition of teaching via parables far beyond the period of the Talmuds). However, here we are concerned with the historical question of the background and contemporary context of Jesus’ use of parables. Hence parables that are attested in documentary evidence only centuries later cannot qualify as “background.” To the oft-repeated mantra of some scholars that the contents of the later literature reflect much earlier oral traditions, one must reply with a question that is not repeated often enough: How much earlier? In most cases, we cannot say. Then, too, there is the basically different Sitz im Leben of the rabbinic parables (as compared with those of Jesus) that naturally produces a different type of parable: formulated within the setting and needs of academies, the rabbinic parables directly address problems of scriptural interpretation and hălākâ in a way that Jesus’ parables generally do not. However, this observation about the real differences in Sitz im Leben, immediate audience, and intentionality (to say nothing of the problem of dating) should not be taken as a sort of crypto-apologetics employed to exalt Jesus’ parables over those of the rabbis. “Different” or “earlier” does not necessarily mean “better.”
56. I realize that one is drawing a fine distinction in deciding that Jesus’ saying about the Leaven (which takes up a single verse in Matt 13:33, but two verses in Luke 13:20–21) qualifies as a parable while the saying about the strong man does not. I would argue that, in the parable of the Leaven, there is a mini-plot or mini-narrative with a sequence of actions leading to a denouement. Such a narrative structure and development are lacking in the similitude of the strong man (note that “and then he pillages his house” at the end of Mark 3:27 simply repeats by way of inclusio the idea of pillaging his house stated at the beginning of the verse). But I readily admit that lines of division become fuzzy at this point and that therefore those critics who categorize the saying about the strong man as a parable may be correct. This saying is especially difficult to classify because Luke’s version (probably the Q form; see A Marginal Jew, 2. 417) takes up two verses and expands the similitude into what one might argue does constitute a parable.
57. For varied approaches to the questions surrounding memory, oral tradition, and written sources, see, e.g., James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making 1; Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2003), esp. 173–254; Terence C. Mournet, Oral Tradition and Literary Dependency. Variability and Stability in the Synoptic Tradition and Q (WUNT 2/195; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 2005); Armin D. Baum, Der mündliche Faktor und seine Bedeutung für die synoptische Frage (Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter 49; Tübingen: Francke, 2008); Robert K. McIver, Memory, Jesus, and the Synoptic Gospels (SBL Resources for Biblical Study 59; Atlanta: SBL, 2011). To take one prominent example of this approach that emphasizes the importance of the memory and oral testimony of eyewitnesses: in many different publications, Richard Bauckham has sought to create a presumption in favor of the reliability of the Gospel traditions in general on the grounds that they enshrine eyewitness testimony. See, e.g., his Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2006). While this is not the place for a full discussion of his views, I would briefly note the following: (1) Bauckham’s overall project is one of theological apologetics, not a quest for the historical Jesus. The driving engine of his whole approach is a particular theological agenda, which makes his methodology unacceptable in a strictly historical quest for the historical Jesus. I have no objection to christology in particular and theology in general using arguments from both historical research and the social sciences; indeed, I think such an approach is laudable. But a theological project employing historical research must not be confused with a strictly historical project, and the quest for the historical Jesus must be the latter. (2) Bauckham’s use of patristic and other early Christian sources in general and of Papias in particular is open to serious question. I dare say that the fragmentary statements of Papias about the Gospels and the early disciples (cited by Eusebius) have yielded more diverse and clashing interpretations than many cruces interpretum in the NT. To place so much weight on Papias for an overall argument for the reliability of the Gospels and the eyewitness testimony supposedly contained in them is to build on sand. On the problem of the mythical and legendary elements that predominate in the oral traditions preserved by Papias, see David E. Aune, “Prolegomena to the Study of Oral Tradition in the Hellenistic World,” Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition (JSNTSup 64; ed. Henry Wansbrough; Sheffield: Academic Press, 1991) 59–106, esp. 80–83, 98. Noteworthy is Aune’s observation (p. 97) that, in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, oral traditions were considered more valuable than written texts in some circles, while other circles regarded written texts as more valuable than oral tradition. Papias’ high estimation of oral traditions was not universally shared. (3) For a brief and convenient example of Bauckham’s questionable handling of patristic material, one need only peruse his solution to the question of the precise relationship of “the brothers and sisters” of Jesus to the historical Jesus (“The Brothers and Sisters of Jesus: An Epiphanian Response to John P. Meier,” CBQ 56 [1994] 686–700). In his defense of the Epiphanian view (i.e., that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were the offspring of Joseph by a previous marriage), Bauckham employs as key witnesses the Protevangelium Jacobi, the Greek Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Peter (actually a dubious statement about the Gospel of Peter in Origen). For a critique of his argument and his odd use of these patristic sources, see my “On Retrojecting Later Questions from Later Texts,” 511–27. (4) Bauckham appeals to various social-scientific studies to bolster his claim about eyewitnesses and memory. The problem is that other social-scientific studies may be and have been invoked to question the reliability of eyewitness testimony; see, e.g., Judith C. S. Redman, “How Accurate Are Eyewitnesses? Bauckham and the Eyewitnesses in the Light of Psychological Research,” JBL 129 (2010) 177–97. One is reminded of dueling lawyers at a criminal trial, each one calling to the stand a psychiatrist to give expert witness that diametrically opposes the witness of the other expert. (5) All too often, appeals by biblical scholars to studies of memory presume that memory plays an important role only in the passing on of traditions in their oral stage. As I noted earlier in this chapter, especially in the ancient world, memory of texts previously heard or read would also influence scribes in the production or copying of texts. For some corrective comments on the use of memory studies in debates about the oral and written sources of the Gospels, see Alan Kirk, “Orality, Writing, and Phantom Sources: Appeals to Ancient Media in Some Recent Challenges to the Two Document Hypothesis,” NTS 58 (2012) 1–22; this article should be read in tandem with his essay, “Memory Theory and Jesus Research,” Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus (4 vols.; ed. Tom Holmén and Stanley E. Porter; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2011) 1. 809–51.
58. On the whole question of the relation of “oral performance” to the formation and reading of NT texts, see Larry W. Hurtado, “Oral Fixation and New Testament Studies? ‘Orality,’ ‘Performance’ and Reading Texts in Early Christianity,” NTS 60 (2014) 321–40. While affirming the importance of the spoken word and oral tradition in early Christianity, Hurtado stresses that this does not justify assigning written texts a minor role. He rightly questions claims that in early Christian groups texts were not read aloud from written documents but rather delivered from memory in a theatrical performance and that at times Christian texts were composed in and by such oral performances. At the same time, we must remember that our own focus in Volume Five is the passing down of individual parables by tradents of the Synoptic tradition within the first and second generations of Christianity. Whether or not individual parables were gathered together in a small written collection of parables before Mark and the other evangelists composed their Gospels is something we do not and cannot know.
59. While comparisons made to the oral traditions behind the Iliad, the Odyssey, and other ancient epic poems as well as to folk traditions and poems handed down orally in certain modern cultures (e.g., the Balkans) are enlightening, one must at the same time bear in mind the relatively unusual nature of the Synoptic tradition. (1) The traditions coming from Jesus were in the beginning purely oral; yet these oral traditions were being passed down in a culture that was also scribal and had been scribal for many centuries. (2) Between the time of Jesus’ public ministry (ca. A.D. 28–30) and the composition of the first Synoptic Gospel stand at most forty years (if we accept the common dating of Mark ca. A.D. 70). If one were to accept the date sometimes suggested for the composition of the Q document (ca. A.D. 50), the time of a purely oral tradition without any written expression shrinks to twenty years. A similar conclusion would have to be drawn if we accepted the theories of some Marcan scholars about pre-Marcan written sources containing collections of dispute stories, parables, miracle stories, or a primitive Passion Narrative. (3) Once Q and Mark are written down and begin to circulate in other churches (both are known independently by Matthew and Luke, writing in different churches ca. A.D. 80–90), we must reckon with the ongoing oral tradition being affected by secondary orality springing from these written sources. (4) That certain written sources, soon after they appeared, were considered especially important and even authoritative (though certainly not yet canonical) can be seen from the fact that between 80 and 90 percent of Mark was taken over and reworked by Matthew, despite Matthew’s obvious distaste for Mark’s style and theology. On this question, see David C. Sim, “Matthew’s Use of Mark: Did Matthew Intend to Supplement or to Replace His Primary Source?,” NTS 57 (2011) 176–92. Moreover, despite the fact that Luke most likely did not know Matthew, he likewise adopted the ungainly Mark as the narrative backbone of his vastly expanded and more sophisticated literary work. (5) In the whole process of the oral transmission of Jesus’ words and deeds and their eventual incorporation into written Gospels, one must remember that we are not dealing with epic stories about heroes from the distant past or recent reports about intriguing events within one’s social group. After the pivotal events surrounding Jesus’ death and the reports of his resurrection, his followers (including eyewitnesses of the public ministry) passed on traditions about him as “good news,” sacred traditions that were so important for the salvation of the bearers and their audiences that they were willing to suffer persecution and even death for the truth of what they proclaimed. This is not the same as a bard’s dedication to passing on and developing Homeric poetry.
60. We will be running into the technical term “tradent” a good deal in subsequent chapters. According to the Internet resource “Oxford Biblical Studies Online,” in academic usage “tradent” means “one who is responsible for preserving and handing on the oral tradition, such as a teacher or preacher or missionary”; examples of such oral traditions would be dispute stories, miracle stories, and parables.
61. Gerhardsson, “The Narrative Meshalim in the Synoptic Gospels,” 362. Taking Matt 13:51–52 as an indication of such creative freedom, Gerhardsson (p. 363) concludes that “the question of the authenticity of the individual mashal must be discussed, in the last resort, from case to case.”
62. One might object that the criterion of embarrassment can be used for those parables that seem to extol or hold up as a model a person of questionable moral probity. A prime example would be the parable traditionally given the title of the Dishonest Steward (Luke 16:1–9). The problem with this line of argument, however, is that one is presuming that one correctly understands the parable and that therefore one correctly detects immoral activity on the part of the steward (note the preemptive strike of the traditional title, “the Dishonest Steward,” with the presumption that this title encapsulates the main point of the parable). If instead one takes the view that the steward in the parable, while irresponsible in squandering his master’s goods (16:2–3) and therefore “dishonest” in that sense, does not do anything dishonest in reducing the amounts owed by the debtors (16:5–7) but rather voluntarily renounces the part of the debt payment that would accrue to him as his commission on the transactions (see, e.g., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke [AYB 28 and 28A; 2 vols.; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981, 1985] 2. 1094–1102), the steward, at least at the end of the story, is being cagey and prudent rather than dishonest. Faced with a crisis, he has chosen short-term loss for the sake of long-term gain. Be that as it may, the larger point here is that before one can appeal to the argument from embarrassment in the case of a parable, one must first establish one’s particular interpretation of the parable (namely, that the parable is extolling a disreputable person precisely because he is disreputable) as the correct one. Then, too, what counts as a disreputable person in 21st-century America (e.g., a hard, demanding, punitive master) did not necessarily count as such in the ancient Near East.
63. Hear Then the Parable, 63–64. Scott is quite honest about the reason for framing his method in the way he does. He accepts the (questionable) methodological principle espoused by Norman Perrin: “. . . the burden of proof falls on the one who would claim the authenticity of a saying. . . .” Scott immediately counters that the case is different when it comes to Jesus’ parables; here the burden of proof falls on the person claiming that the “originating structure” of a parable is not from Jesus. Apart from the fact that I do not think that Scott’s reasons for shifting the burden of proof hold, a further problem with his whole approach is presuming the binary dilemma in which one is dealing with only two interlocutors: the defender and the denier of the authenticity of a parable. This binary approach implicitly allows only two possible judgments at the end of a scholarly inquiry: either the parable comes from the historical Jesus, or it does not. But as we have seen countless times in the first four volumes of A Marginal Jew, the sober judgment at the end of an investigation may instead be non liquet. Granted this third option, the principle of the burden of proof is better formulated as follows: the burden of proof falls on anyone who tries to prove anything; on this, see A Marginal Jew, 1. 194 n. 65.
64. On the problem connected with an esthetic argument for the authenticity of the Synoptic parables, see Gerhard Sellin, “Lukas als Gleichniserzähler: die Erzählung vom barmherzigen Samariter (Lk 10:25–37),” ZNW 65 (1974) 166–89 (Part I); ZNW 66 (1975) 19–60 (Part I), esp. 167–68.
65. See the remark of Appelbaum in his The Rabbis’ King-Parables, 271.
66. See Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 64.
67. One must allow for the fact that variations in oral performance of a parable may go back to Jesus himself, who quite possibly spoke the same basic parable on different occasions to different audiences and therefore modified the parable accordingly.
68. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus, 361.
69. Ibid., 308.
70. Ibid., 257.
71. Ibid., 233; cf. 139, 143–44.
72. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 118; cf. 103.
73. A number of other problems might be mentioned, including (1) the refusal to adopt and stick to any one solution of the Synoptic Problem and (2) the absence of a detailed verse-by-verse exegesis of each parable. Instead, appeals to multiple oral performances, the nonexistence of any original version of a parable, and similar mantras popular today mask the absence of methodological rigor. When it comes to the question of the authenticity of the parables, Snodgrass’s whole project remains on a lofty level of generalization, intuition, and artistic impressionism.