A Chorus of Voices: The Reception History of the Parables
A blog by Dr. David B. Gowler (Oxford College of Emory University) about the reception history of the parables of Jesus. It includes reflections on issues from three of my books on the parables: What are They Saying about the Parables? (Paulist), The Parables after Jesus (Baylor), Howard Thurman: Sermons on the Parables (Orbis).
Friday, March 15, 2024
Second expanded edition: What Are They Saying About the Parables? (Chapter 6, Part 6): Willi Braun and Luke 14's Great Dinner
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Second expanded edition: What Are They Saying About the Parables? (Chapter 6, Part 5): Parables and Paideia
Parables and Paideia
Monday, March 11, 2024
“We need more Howard Thurman in our politics: The theologian and often-overlooked civil rights hero would have warned us against politics as a zero-sum game.”
destroys finally the core of the life of the hater. While it lasts, burning in white heat, its effect seems positive and dynamic. But at last it turns to ash, for it guarantees a final isolation from one’s fellows…. Hatred bears deadly and bitter fruit.
Sunday, March 10, 2024
Second expanded edition: What Are They Saying About the Parables? (Chapter 6, Part 4): Rhetoric--Parsons, Martin, Farmer, and Gowler
Mikeal Parsons and Michael Martin devote a chapter to the fable in their book, Ancient Rhetoric and the New Testament. They begin by noting that the exercises on fable in the progymnasmata not only taught foundational literary skills through such practices as paraphrase, expansion and compression, and refutation and confirmation, all of which led to “compositional mastery” of the fable; fables also involve character formation (45–49).
In a significant expansion of Beavis’s list of basic similarities, Parsons and Martin note that the parables of Jesus exhibit “the same literary features and practices” as found in (other) examples of fables in antiquity (for details see the book). Jesus’ parables (1) feature the same kinds of subjects and classifications; (2) exhibit “realism”; (3) exhibit a similar amount of “moralizing” as described in the progymnasmata and found in ancient fables; (4) display the same simple, conversational style as prose fables; (5) occasionally contain the same kind of inflection (e.g., variations in case and number) as prescribed in the progymnasmata and also occasionally found in fables; (6) are often woven into the larger narrative in a manner delineated in the progymnasmata and evident in most Greek and Hebrew fables; (7) undergo the same kinds of paraphrase and expansion/contraction explained in the progymnasmata and evident in the transmission of fables—comparing the differing versions of the same parable in Matthew, Mark, and/or Luke reflect such “editorial” practices (59–62).
The importance of the progymnasmata for parable studies goes well beyond the fable, however. In 1961, for example, William Farmer discovered a progymnastic pattern in some sections of Luke in which an introduction is followed by three closely-related sayings and the third “saying” is an illustrative parable (13:1–9; 15:1–32; cf. 12:13–21, where the Rich Fool parable illustrates the saying in 12:15). This structure, he argues, is generated by the progymnastic rhetorical tradition of citing, paraphrasing, expounding, and illustrating a chreia (307–10).
Theon, who defines chreia as “a recollection of a saying or action or both, with a pointed meaning, usually for the sake of something useful,” notes that a chreia can be expressed as an enthymeme. As Richard Vinson discovered, the narrative enthymeme is one of Luke’s preferred rhetorical techniques. Enthymemes in Lukan parables, for example, are distinctive qualitatively and quantitatively, because they allow characters to speak for themselves to a greater extent than in Mark or Matthew’s parables—e.g., characters explaining their motives—which creates a more complete characterization of them.
In my writings, I extend this concept in parable interpretation by demonstrating how the Lukan parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:16–20) works “enthymematically.” For example, the unexpressed element of an enthymeme serves as a way to engage the hearers/readers more actively in a way parallel to how parables require hearers/readers to fill in enthymematic literary, social/cultural, and other gaps.
Friday, March 8, 2024
Second expanded edition: What Are They Saying About the Parables? (Chapter 6, Part 3): Mary Ann Beavis and Joshua Stigall
A reminder that the second edition of What Are they Saying about the Parables? is revised and expanded in every chapter and two additional chapters are completely new. I am continuing a summary of some sections of the book (many details and analyses are missing from these summaries). For more details, get the book itself.
1. Similarities in narrative structure2. Similarities in content3. Religious and ethical themes4. An element of surprise or irony5. Secondary morals or application
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Christopher Rowland: Speaking of God in an Inhumane World: Essays on Liberation Theology and Radical Christianity. Volume 1
Delighted to announce the publication of a new book I edited: a series of essays by Christopher Rowland, Dean Ireland's Professor Emeritus, University of Oxford, on Liberation Theology and Radical Christianity. My editor copies are on the way to me:
Christopher Rowland, Speaking of God in an Inhumane World: Essays on Liberation Theology and Radical Christianity. Volume 1. Edited by David B. Gowler. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2024.
The second volume has already been submitted and is in the copyediting stage. Its title is: Speaking of God in an Inhumane World: Essays on Müntzer, Winstanley, Blake, Stringfellow, and Radical Christianity.
Sunday, March 3, 2024
Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Good Samaritans (PART I: Chapters 1 & 2)
The first two chapters of my forthcoming (11/24) book:
Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community:
From Prodigals to Good Samaritans
Second expanded edition: What Are They Saying About the Parables? (Chapter 6, Part 6): Willi Braun and Luke 14's Great Dinner
Willi Braun’s study of the parable of the Great Dinner in Luke 14:16–24 also exhibits the productive nature of Hellenistic-Roman comparati...
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Good Samaritan mural, St. Catherine's Monastery (4th century) Can you find the Good Samaritan's "animal" (Luke 10:...
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The Good Shepherd; Catacomb of Callixtus/Callisto Catacombs are underground cemeteries that contain numerous tombs, often consistin...
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"St. Augustine Teaching Rhetoric," Jan van Scorel (1495-1562) Augustine's pre-Christian life affected his inter...